Class Struggle

In these times, Local 8751 is a rarity, a seeming throwback to a bygone era. But the bosses fear this union. The bosses are treating it as such a threat because if this local union’s example spreads, the capitalist class is in trouble....

The independent people’s republics of Novorossiya celebrated an historic victory of the anti-fascist people’s militias over U.S.-backed Ukrainian military forces near the railroad hub town of Debaltsevo on the shared border of Donetsk and Lugansk in the Donbass region....

The leftist Syriza government in Greece has accepted a negotiated retreat from its election promises after a faceoff with the European bankers, led by German finance capital. This ends the latest phase of the struggle of the Greek people against austerity. But this struggle, while it may be paused, must not be allowed to die....

Walmart is the largest private employer in the United States, hiring around 1 percent of all U.S. workers. Its announcement that it will raise what it pays to 500,000 workers to at least $9 an hour in April and $10 an hour next year has had a major impact. And of course, the reaction on Wall Street was immediate: Walmart’s stock price dropped by 3 percent....

Ever since Comandante Hugo Chavez became president of Venezuela in 1998 and the Bolivarian Revolution began, there has been no time that the opposition — supported and, to a large extent, led by the United States — has stopped trying to overturn the revolutionary process. It is a story repeated many times in Latin America — so much so that there’s a joke that “the U.S. is the only country where there are no coups because there is no Yankee embassy there.”

Six people died horrible deaths when a Metro-North commuter train collided with a sports utility vehicle in Valhalla, N.Y., a northern suburb of New York City, on Feb. 6. Five of the bodies were burned beyond recognition.eing injured, Smalls helped passengers get off the train....

A case before the U.S. Supreme Court which seeks police exemption from the Americans with Disabilities Act has critical importance for all those seeking to stop unwarranted police killings. This case involves police shootings of people with mental illness....

Since the 2008 capitalist downturn sparked the debt crisis, Greek working people have held huge demonstrations, general strikes and now have voted in the Syriza government to oppose the brutal austerity program imposed by U.S. and European, especially German, banks. Syriza has pledged to have half the debt written off and to roll back the austerity measures of the previous government. At this time, the European Union’s bankers refuse and are digging in their heels....

Millions of people around the world watched with alarm as the U.S.-backed Ukrainian government again escalated its war of terror against the independent Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics of the Donbass region. But there was utter silence about the massacre of civilians in Washington and European capitals – until the anti-fascist volunteer militias of Donbass surrounded up to 7,000 Ukrainian troops in the Debaltsevo region last week....

When the Troika — the International Monetary Fund, European Commission and European Central Bank — disbursed 226.7 billion euros to Greece between May 2010 and the present, European capitalists and politicians spoke of these funds as if they were a gift to the Greek people. In reality, the funds went almost exclusively to bailing out the banks, provided little benefit to the people and increased Greece’s public debt....

The U.S. government says it is discussing — if it is not already a done deal — sending $3 billion in heavy arms to the Kiev government in Ukraine, which was installed by a U.S.-inspired coup last February. Sending these weapons will, at a minimum, bring more suffering to millions of people in Ukraine....

The new left social-democratic government of the Syriza party was swept into office in Greece on an anti-austerity program on Jan. 25. The party targeted the harsh neoliberal cutbacks, budget cuts and privatization imposed by the “Troika” — the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission....

In the early morning hours of Jan. 24, three GRAD missiles struck a residential area on the outskirts of Mariupol, the second largest city in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR), formerly part of southeastern Ukraine. Reports indicate that at least 30 people died and nearly 100 were injured....

Voters in Greece’s Jan. 25 parliamentary election rejected the harsh, devastating austerity program imposed, for the past six years, by the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission on the working class in that country....

Now that the threat of the spread of Ebola within the United States has
diminished — for the present — news of the crisis has dropped into
the back pages of the corporate-owned major newspapers and off the broadcast
media. But the Ebola epidemic remains a continuing danger in parts of Africa
and an ongoing threat that requires worldwide attention and action....

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I and the 75th anniversary of the start of World War II. It is 25 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall symbolized the end of the so-called "Cold War" and brought the false promise that massive military spending would be converted into a "peace dividend" for the people Today the United States today is waging war, directly or by proxy, against the entire world...

A conference on the Right of Peoples to Self-Determination and Building a
Multipolar World was held in Moscow on Dec. 13, 2015, hosted by the
Antiglobalization Movement of Russia. The conference brought together activists from Novorossiya (the Donetsk and Lugansk ), TransDniester, Iran, Syria, the Serb Republic, Italy, the United States and several regions of the Russian Federation. The conference was opened by AGM President Alexander Ionov. Other speakers included Oleg Tsarev, the speaker of the Parliament of Novorossia and Alexander Kofman, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Donetsk People’s Republic.
...

It is an outrage that Eric Garner was killed by a wolfpack of racist cops
and a chokehold. It is an even greater outrage that, although the attack was
caught on videotape for the whole world to see, the killers were not brought to
trial....

Tens of thousands of Haitians have come out into the streets repeatedly in the last month. They demand that President Michel Martelly and Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe leave office and that the 6,000 troops of the United Nation’s occupation force, called Minustah, leave Haiti....

December 4 was a phenomenal day for fast food workers. They shut down the grills, closed the cash registers and walked off their jobs, joining their brothers and sisters in a one-day strike in 190 cities. It was the eighth and most far-reaching strike day so far since fast food workers began their walkouts two years ago in their fight for a $15 hourly wage and a union....

In 2011, a heroic mass revolution deposed U.S.-supported Egyptian dictator Gen. Hosni Mubarak. This uprising was an inspiration to poor and oppressed people all over the world. Its current assassins — which include the new military regime of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and U.S. imperialism — deserve the condemnation of all progressive and justice-seeking people everywhere....

The national movement touched off Nov. 24 by the killing of Michael Brown in
Ferguson, Mo., reached over 170 cities. It is unprecedented in scope, going way beyond this recent killing to take on the front-line forces of the racist,
capitalist state: the police. The police are a racist occupation force
everywhere there is a community of oppressed people — Black, Latino/a,
Asian, Muslim or Native. They are the universal target of the new movement....

The fighting, angry spirit of the people of Ferguson, Mo., following the decision not to prosecute racist killer-cop Darren Wilson for the murder of Michael Brown seems to have carried into many of the more than 2,250 reported strikes at Walmart stores around the United States from Nov. 26 through Nov. 28, “Black Friday.”
...

November 18 is the anniversary of the 1803 battle of Vertière, the
decisive battle of the Haitian revolution in which an army of former slaves
— most born in Africa — defeated the cream of the French army and
guaranteed Haiti’s independence....

Thirteen. That’s the average daily death toll in the Ukrainian
government’s war against the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics
since a ceasefire agreement was signed in early September, according to a Nov.
20 report by United Nations monitors. (BBC Nov. 21)...

In light of the police murder of the martyr Michael Brown and the ongoing
struggle in Ferguson, Missouri, in the United States, the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine salutes and stands firmly with the ongoing struggle of
Black people and all oppressed communities in the United States....

The disappearance and presumed murder of the 43 Mexican students of
Ayotzinapa exposed to the world the relation between drug cartels and the
violence of the state apparatus in capitalist Mexico. What is not publicized in
the corporate media is the U.S. role in corrupting and impoverishing Mexico
— and in causing the drug war that has taken 100,000 lives. Today, the
masses there are rising up in protest....

The 45th commemoration of the National Day of Mourning on Nov. 27 in Plymouth, Mass., will again honor Native political prisoner Leonard Peltier, a heroic fighter for the rights of Indigenous and other oppressed peoples. Peltier has been unjustly imprisoned for 38 years....

Members of the Ferguson and St. Louis, Mo., communities started gathering in front of the notorious Ferguson police station on Nov. 24, hours before the pro-cop state prosecutor, Bob McCullough, announced to the whole world the grand jury findings on whether a white police officer, Darren Wilson, would be indicted for killing an 18-year-old African-American youth, Michael Brown, on Aug. 9. Once McCullough stepped to the podium, 20 minutes late for an 8 p.m. start time, he made the predictable but still shocking announcement that there was no probable cause to view the killing of Brown as a crime. So therefore, another white cop was let off the hook for taking the life of a Black youth. It was revealed that Wilson shot 12 times at Brown and struck him at least six times....

When President Harry Truman sent U.S. troops to Korea in 1950, he called it a “police action.” He chose those words for a reason: It was the first time a U.S. president sent troops into war without congressional authorization. Calling it a “police action,” he and the military-industrial complex evaded the article of the Constitution that confers on Congress, not the president, the power to declare war....

Workers in Belgium showed that they had had enough. The latest cuts to their living standards brought them out in the streets in massive numbers at the call of the main trade unions in the country. They would refuse to accept raising the retirement age from 65 to 67 or breaking the link between wages and inflation or privatizing the national railroad system....

On Nov. 24, the Boston school bus drivers will gather at a courthouse to show support for grievance chair and union founder Steve Kirschbaum.

Kirschbaum will be on trial facing outrageous trumped-up charges — including felonious assault with a dangerous weapon — that are obviously being used by employer Veolia Corp. to try to bust the union....

Despite continued shelling in areas of Donbass by Kiev’s armies, there was mass participation by residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics in the Nov. 2 elections. All TV channels broadcast footage of the long lines at polling stations in the DNR and LC....

With a demonstration that started at the entrance to the Great Hall of the University of California at San Diego on Nov. 5, people in southern California joined the hundreds of thousands of outraged people nationally and internationally who are demanding that 43 missing Mexican student activists be found and brought home alive....

Mexico continues to be rocked by massive protests after the disappearance of 43 students from the city of Iguala, Guerrero state, on Sept. 27. The youth had been handed over to local drug lords by police who fired on a student demonstration, killing six and wounding many more....

Despite the overall grim results of the Nov. 4 midterm election, many workers have reason to celebrate. Ballot initiatives to raise the minimum wage passed in Alaska, Arkansas, Illinois, Nebraska and South Dakota, and in the cities of San Francisco and Oakland, Calif....

The loss of the U.S. Senate to the Republican right and their gains in the Congress during the midterm 2014 elections can be largely attributed to a low voter turnout among key Democratic constituencies....

After much intense discussion among opposition parties, mass organizations and the religious leaders of Burkina Faso, it was announced on Nov. 10 that a roadmap was agreed upon for a transition to civilian rule — after mass protests had pushed out President Blaise Compaore. This consensus must now be negotiated with the military to set the terms of the transition....

With the death of Mr. Thomas Eric Duncan shortly after his arrival from Liberia, West Africa, the Ebola crisis has burst onto millions of news screens, generating deep levels of fear and xenophobia....

On Nov. 2, against the backdrop of the U.S. and NATO’s provocative “Iron Sword” war games in nearby Lithuania, residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DNR and LC) went to the polls for the first elections since declaring independence from Ukraine....

Excerpts from solidarity statements received by the International Action Center on the six-month anniversary of the massacre in Odessa, Ukraine, on May 2, 2014. The complete statements are available at No2Nato.org.

From Alexei Albu, massacre survivor, Odessa Regional Council deputy and member of Union Borotba (Struggle), now living in exile...

Some people thought that so-called European integration would bring Western living standards to Ukraine. But to see reality, we need to look at the situation in Greece. The EU doesn’t bring high living standards, but a regime of austerity to cut social spending by the state....

We are in the midst of a deepening capitalist global crisis, which has
unleashed imperialist war on Iraq, Syria, Gaza, Africa and the world, and
militarized racist police terror here at home. It has brought about the
widespread impoverishment of the working class and oppressed peoples, many of them migrants and women, on a worldwide basis.
...

In a rare note of agreement, the Wall Street Journal and Novosti, a Russian newspaper, agree on the large size of a workers’ anti-austerity demonstration: 1 million. That is the number of Italian workers who marched to the Piazza San Giovanni in Rome on Oct. 25 to protest a new labor law rammed through the legislature on Oct. 9 by Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi....

Railroad workers and the services they supply to their passengers are under attack all over Europe. In September and early October, German railroad workers walked out. The third week of October, Belgian train engineers walked out in a series of spontaneous strikes and blocked the tracks in place like Liège and Charleroi....

The grievance chair and founder of the Boston School Bus Drivers’
Union will be in court on Nov. 24, facing trumped-up charges brought by the
Boston-area district attorney’s office on behalf of notorious
union-buster Veolia Corporation....

Simferopol, Crimea — On Sept. 22, Workers
World conducted an extensive interview with Victor Shapinov, a coordinator and
leading theoretician of the Marxist organization Union Borotba (Struggle) of
Ukraine. Shapinov currently lives in exile with other Borotba activists in
Crimea, under threat of arrest from the U.S.-backed coup regime in Kiev.
Additional installments of the interview will appear in coming weeks....

It is impossible to ignore that the capitalist for-profit system is the greatest obstacle in the effort to control the Ebola epidemic. Capitalism has sown abject poverty and malnutrition, dismantled existing public health systems, crushed human solidarity, based the development of vaccines and cures on their profit margin and weakened human ability to survive diseases....

everal United States congressional representatives have called for a ban on travel into the U.S. from the three West African states which have been the most severely impacted by the recent Ebola Virus Disease outbreak. These proposals demanded that President Barack Obama prohibit travelers from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia from entering the U.S....

Simferopol, Crimea — On Sept. 22, Workers World conducted an
extensive interview with Victor Shapinov, a coordinator and leading
theoretician of the Marxist organization Union Borotba (Struggle) of Ukraine.
Shapinov currently lives in exile with other Borotba activists in Crimea, under
threat of arrest from the U.S.-backed coup regime in Kiev. Additional
installments of the interview will appear in coming weeks....

October 8 is the Day of the Heroic Guerrilla, honoring the sacrifice of Latin American communist revolutionary Che Guevara. It is also the date of the founding congress of the Communist Party of the Donetsk People’s Republic, held in the capital city of Donetsk....

The following is a press release from the Anti-Privatization of Healthcare Coordination, centered in Madrid, that was issued on Oct. 7 following the announcement that a nurse at the Carlos III Hospital had contracted Ebola after contact with an Ebola patient brought back from West Africa....

In evaluating an emerging movement it is important to look at what political forces are supporting the movement. What are the demands raised by the movement, who are they appealing to, and what is the social composition of those in motion?...

Venezuela is in the midst of the difficult task of constructing the path to
socialism. Like any living process, it does not go forward in a straight line.
It instead has advances and setbacks, mistakes and corrections. The important
thing is the continuous effort of the people in propelling the construction of
a fair system to once and for all supplant the violent capitalism still
prevalent in Venezuela....

Activists in over 2,808 cities in 166 countries participated on Sept. 21 in the first international Peoples Climate March. The events took place two days before more than 120 world leaders will convene for the United Nations Climate Summit in New York City on Sept. 23 to plan for a new global climate treaty in 2015....

Between 1.5 million and 2 million people took to the streets in Barcelona to demand that the Spanish federal government in the capital of Madrid accept the results of a vote on the independence of Catalonia scheduled for Nov. 9....

The foreclosure crisis has had a negative impact on the people of the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, Mo., the epicenter of a rebellion for justice springing from the shooting death of Michael Brown, 18, at the hands of cop Darren Wilson on Aug. 9.
...

A ceasefire agreement signed in Minsk, Belarus, on Sept. 5, under the auspices of the Trilateral Contact Group, went into effect at 6 p.m. local time. The parties to the agreement were the governments of Ukraine and the Russian Federation and the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe....

The popular militias united in the Novorossian Armed Forces of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics are composed of workers of many nationalities living throughout the Donbass mining region, formerly part of southeastern Ukraine. Both rank and file and leaders are speaking out on the future direction of their struggle against fascism and imperialism. Here is some of what they say:...

The scene could have been scripted by Hollywood, except this time the prison guards and cops were certainly not the heroes. In the late night hours of Labor Day, Sept. 1, during a guard shift change, 32 young men, Black, Brown and white, broke through the walls of their dorms and slipped out underneath the fence of the Woodland Youth Development Center, a state-run youth prison in Nashville, Tenn. Since then, all but six of the youth have been apprehended....

In Liberia, where many people have been killed by the Ebola virus, nurses and physicians went on strike on Sept. 1, 2 and 4 due to lack of pay and the dangers they face due to the minimal resources available to address the burgeoning health care disaster....

Thousands of fast food workers fighting for a $15 hourly wage and union protection walked off their jobs on Sept. 4 in more than 150 U.S. cities. Some 465 workers and their supporters were arrested during the one-day strike for engaging in acts of civil disobedience, blocking streets around McDonald’s, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and other fast food chains....

The situation in Ferguson is by no means an isolated incident. Since the time of slavery, Africans have resisted national oppression, racist violence and economic exploitation. To even suggest that the oppressed and the oppressor have equal responsibility in a situation that was clearly provoked by the police, the authorities in St. Louis County and the state of Missouri is disingenuous, to say the least....

Vigils and demonstrations involving thousands took place the evening of Thursday, Aug. 14, in at least 90 cities across the United States to protest the police killing of Michael Brown, 18, in Ferguson, Mo. Organized quickly on social media, the somber and angry gatherings included a moment of silence for Brown at 7:20 p.m. Eastern time. Other demonstrations against the racist killing and in solidarity with the ongoing rebellion of the African-American community in Ferguson have taken place before and since....

The great struggle for justice by the African-American people of Ferguson, Mo., comes after a white cop there gunned down young Michael Brown. Witnesses say the 18-year-old was unarmed and calling “Don’t shoot” with his hands in the air when officer Darren Wilson repeatedly shot and killed him....

The “Commissar Order” (Richtlinien für die Behandlung politischer Kommissare) was issued by the Supreme Command of the Wehrmacht on June 6, 1941 — two weeks before Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union. The decree stated that “the commissars are not recognized as soldiers; they are not covered by the international legal protections for [prisoners of war]. After sorting them out, destroy them.”...

A class-action lawsuit was filed on July 21 in federal bankruptcy court
involving victims of the mass water shutoffs and four community organizations:
Moratorium NOW! Coalition, Michigan Welfare Rights Organization, People’s Water Board and the Michigan chapter of the National Action Network. The lawsuit demands a moratorium on shutoffs; that all those shut off be reconnected immediately; that an affordable plan be enacted where residents cannot be charged more than 2 percent of their income; and that money paid to the banks for usurious interest rate swaps be used to help pay off residents’ arrears....

Efforts by Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr to carry out the program of restructuring in favor of the banks and corporations during the city’s bankruptcy proceedings have drawn growing opposition from inside Detroit and beyond....

The Detroit Water & Sewerage Department announced at a federal bankruptcy court hearing before Judge Steven Rhodes today that there would be a 15-day suspension of water shutoffs while policies were enacted to address the current crisis in the city. Additional measures are purportedly being designed to address the massive termination of water services for thousands of households in this economically distressed majority African-American city....

A dog and pony show put on by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Detroit municipal bankruptcy proceedings took an unexpected turn on July 15 when Moratorium NOW! Coalition activist Kris Hamel told the judge he needed to put a moratorium on mass water shutoffs and ameliorate the suffering of the poorest Detroiters....

Massive water shutoffs have drawn attention to the humanitarian crisis in the city of Detroit. Even though the United Nations commission dealing with water resources and access to potable water has condemned the conditions prevailing in the majority African-American municipality, the main response to the documentation of gross human rights violations has been a public relations campaign to distribute bottled water....

Human rights activists marched from the New York Times offices to the Empire State Building — which houses Human Rights Watch — to protest both institutions as tools of the CIA, specifically in their role attacking the Bolivarian government of Venezuela....

The Supreme Court has done it again. It bestowed new rights on corporations. All a corporation has to do these days is plead for a new interpretation of a law and — abracadabra — the court waves its magic wand over the issue and the wish is granted....

At his Escambia County polling site on June 3, 93-year-old African-American Willie Mims was disenfranchised by Alabama’s strict new voter ID law. Mims was turned away because he did not have a photo ID....

The royalty of Wall Street and the leaders of the global corporate establishment will be attending THE WORLD BUSINESS FORUM (WBF). Paying two thousand dollars per seat, The WBF, the biggest of all the meetings of the 1%, will bring some 5000 chief executive officers, and heads of the fortune 500 corporations and banks to Radio City Music Hall on Oct. 7 and 8.
...

The following June 11 letter was sent out to the labor movement and signed by Myles Calvey, business manager, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 2222; Rich Rogers, executive secretary-treasurer, Greater Boston Labor Council; Dumond Lewis, president, United Steelworkers Local 8751; Steven A. Tolman, president, Massachusetts State AFL-CIO; Andrew Slip, staff rep., District 4 USW; and John E. Shinn, director, District 4 USW....

The May 21 New York Times editorialized that 40 U.S. veterans died while waiting for health care at U.S. Veterans Administration hospitals and medical centers. In Phoenix, Ariz., more than 1,300 veterans were told they were getting appointments, but were never notified of them....

On June 5, the United Auto Workers — a union founded in 1935 in a period of tumultuous class struggle — concluded its 36th Constitutional Convention in Detroit. The convention marked the departure of President Bob King, a champion of “partnership” with Ford, General Motors and Chrysler. The acceptance speech of Dennis Williams, the new president who had been secretary-treasurer, took on a more militant tone....

Boston – The $15-and-a-union struggle sweeping the country rolled through the streets of Boston on Gay Pride, June 14, as several union contingents paraded by hundreds of thousands of onlookers with banners and placards supporting the low-wage workers struggle and the Boston School Bus Drivers Union, United Steelworkers Local 8751....

Her name was Yuri, a Japanese woman born in the United States. I hesitate to
call her a Japanese-American, for to do so suggests she was a citizen. In
light of how she, her family and her community were treated during World War
II, especially after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, to call any of them
citizens would be an exaggeration....

In response to company harassment and attempts to silence workers who had
protested and walked off their jobs over intolerable working conditions,
Walmart workers in over 20 cities struck and demonstrated June 4 in a National
Strike Day and Action on Inequality. Demands included “No retaliation
against workers fighting for a just wage” and “$25,000 per year and enough hours to support their families.”...

Boston’s school bus drivers are entering the most intense phase yet of
their struggle against the notorious labor-busting Veolia Corporation. Four leaders of the drivers’ union, United Steelworkers Local 8751, remain fired and have exhausted their unemployment benefits. Veolia and the city of Boston have blatantly violated contract rules in giving out more than 100 summer jobs to non-union companies. The current school bus drivers’
contract expires on June 30. Hanging above everything are massive austerity
cuts in education for Boston schoolchildren. Among the responses by Team Solidarity — the voice of United School Bus Union Workers — is a call for a mass rally, called Solidarity Day
III, on June 30 in front of Veolia’s corporate offices....

Nearly 12 million Syrians cast their ballots on June 3 at 9,601 open polling sites across Syria and in Syrian embassies around the world. With a turnout of 72 percent, President Bashar al-Assad from the Ba’ath Party won over 88 percent of the vote....

It came on the heels of a powerful sit-in at the office of North Carolina’s Speaker of the House Thom Tillis on May 27, during which 11 fast food workers and four clerics were arrested after nearly 12 hours of sitting in at the speaker’s office. This time the Moral Monday movement rallied nearly 1,000 people at the North Carolina Legislature — called the General Assembly — on June 2 around the theme of environmental and health justice....

In yet another sign of the revolutionary momentum sweeping the Americas, Salvador Sánchez Cerén was inaugurated president of El Salvador on June 1 amidst an emotional and victorious air of celebration here in the capital....

On June 3, nearly 12 million Syrians cast their ballots at one of the 9,601 polling sites across Syria. With turnout out at 72 percent, including the millions of Syrian refugees who live across the world, President Bashar al-Assad from the Ba’ath Party won the election with over 88 percent of the vote. Defeated was communist legislator Maher Hajjar, known for leading the protest movement in spring 2011 which called for better programs and assistance for the poor, who had 3.2 percent of the votes. Prominent businessman Hassan Abdullah al-Nouri also ran and received 4.3 percent....

Why is the election in Syria so important that U.S. government officials have condemned it before it takes place? Why, at the same time, have U.S. officials embraced and applauded the results of elections organized by the military coup government of General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in Egypt and the election by the fascist coup forces of billionaire oligarch Petro Poroshenko in Ukraine?...

Youth and students from successive generations were influenced by Maya Angelou’s widely read book, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.” The autobiographical work addressed the formative years of the author, who died May 28 at her home in Winston-Salem, N.C., at the age of 86....

Following is a report and analysis of the May 25 elections by Union
Borotba (Struggle), a revolutionary socialist and anti-fascist organization in
Ukraine, translated by Workers World contributing editor Greg Butterfield and
available on the Borotba.org website. Oligarch Petro Poroshenko declared
himself the landslide winner of the presidential election, getting four times
the vote of his nearest rival, Julia Timoshenko....

Odeh is being charged with Unlawful Procurement of Naturalization, but
strongly asserts her innocence. Deutsch, who has represented political
activists and victims of police and government civil rights violations since
1970, was pleased with the ruling for a continuance and has begun working on a
strategy for the defense....

May 15 saw low-wage workers striking in over 150 U.S. cities, with
co-ordinated strikes and demonstrations in major cities worldwide. Thousands of
workers took part, responding to the call from groups like Fast Food Forward,
Communities for Change, Make the Road and others. These are workers’
organizations that are not unions, even though some of them have ties to some
big unions like the Service Employees and the Food and Commercial Workers....

Today, the romantic image of the rebels of 1968 inspires youth. Young,
beautiful, sexy participants of the revolutionary events of those times are
placed before us as heroes of the movie “The Dreamers” by Bernardo
Bertolucci, which is shown by every progressive youth film club. But those who
admire the youth of the sixties, apparently, have thought little about what the
youthful red rebels of 1968 would fight against today....

The U.S.-backed junta of neoliberal politicians, oligarchs and fascists, which came to power in a coup against the elected government of Ukraine, staged presidential elections May 25 in an attempt to legitimize its rule....

Ras Baraka — the son of the late Amiri Baraka, a world-renowned poet, playwright and activist, and Amina Baraka, also a poet and activist — became the new mayor of Newark, N.J., on May 13. He won 54 percent of the vote in the largest city in New Jersey and a city which, according to the 2010 U.S. Census Bureau, is more than 52 percent African American....

Borotba is an openly Marxist organization, formed in 2011, that has been deeply involved in the struggle in Ukraine. It was driven out of Kiev by the Right Sector after a fascist-led coup overthrew the Viktor Yanukovych government. Borotba has helped to organize resistance to the reactionary forces in Kharkov, Odessa and other cities....

While the eyes of the world focus on the events in Ukraine, the U.S. empire is using this opportunity to intensify its plan to overthrow governments in the Latin American and Caribbean region that are leading the process for change there — Cuba and Venezuela....

Cecily McMillan, a 25-year-old progressive activist, was convicted of assault on a police officer in New York City Criminal Court on May 5. Now a convicted felon, she could receive a sentence of between two and seven years in prison....

Union Square, New York City — Since a migrant upsurge in 2006 revived May Day in the United States, Union Square in this city has attracted those most unequivocally in defense of worker and immigrant rights — who call not merely for immigration reform but for legalization of the undocumented, without conditions. Union Square has drawn together the most militant and anti-imperialist forces in this huge, multinational city....

It was rainy, windy and cold, but this didn’t
dampen the enthusiasm of dozens of protesters gathered outside the Ronald
Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, D.C., on April 29
to tell the National Restaurant Association, “We can’t survive on
$7.25!” A number of passersby, in cars and on foot, gave the
protesters a big thumbs up....

As of this writing, the maneuver by U.S. and European
imperialism at the Geneva “reconciliation” talks to disarm and
disperse the anti-Western resistance in southeast Ukraine has been rebuffed by
the masses there....

If workers in the Ukraine want to see what joining the EU and borrowing from
the “troika” — the European Central Bank, the International
Monetary Fund and the European Commission — might mean for them, they
should look at Greece, Portugal or countries like Spain, which is the same size
as Ukraine....

What historical significance does May have for the people of Honduras? Is it
transcendent just because of the festivities on International Workers’
Day, during which workers around the world lift their collective fists to greet
their class brothers and sisters with the voices of proletarian
internationalism?...

Some 260 leftist political activists from 39 countries, mostly in Latin
America and the Caribbean but including people from around the world, gathered
in Mexico City from March 27 to 29. They joined hundreds from the hosting Labor
Party (Partido del Trabajo or PT) at its 18th International Seminar. Some 100
speakers, from a broad range of left political positions, spoke on many
subjects with a common thread: the danger posed by Washington’s
aggressive posture toward all countries south of the U.S. border and especially
toward the Bolivarian government of Venezuela....

Progressives in Latin America and the
Caribbean have put defense of the Venezuelan government and people at the top
of their priorities. They showed this today when a seminar that had begun as a
standard exchange of information among workers and progressive organizations
from the continent and worldwide turned into a demonstration of solidarity with
Bolivarian Venezuela....

On the morning of April 1, Ukrainian Security Forces (SBU)
agents raided the apartment of Odessa, Ukraine, anti-fascist leader Alexei Albu
with a warrant authorizing them to search for lists of activists and for
weapons....

The New York Times and Washington Post in the U.S. and the Guardian in
England presented France’s local elections on March 30 as a breakthrough
for the French far right, along with substantial gains for the
center-right....

Although escalating instability and threats of civil war have dominated the
corporate media’s coverage of the African continent, trade unions and
student organizations are raising issues that involve the workplace and
educational institutions. Workers and youth, through their unions and mass
organizations, have been expressing profound discontent with the impact of the world capitalist crisis, which has its origins in the Western imperialist
states....

As reported by the Union Borotba (Struggle), a mass protest took place on
the March 8 International Women’s Day holiday in Kharkiv city center in
the eastern Ukraine. Many of the thousands carried red flags and gathered near
the monument to Lenin, “which we managed to protect from the Nazis during
recent rallies.”...

Black Reconstruction represented the aspirations of millions of formerly
enslaved people to win bourgeois democratic rights. This radical period was
violently cut short by a terrorist counterrevolution, led by the former
slavocracy with complicity from the federal government....

The origins of women’s oppression in the rise of class society and the
historic need for socialism were raised as well. Two of the speakers gave a
call to “Shut it down!” on April 1, the day when objectors to the
Detroit emergency manager’s bankruptcy plan of austerity and giveaways to
the banks will turn in their objections and rally outside the federal
bankruptcy court....

When Kiev’s City Hall was seized with guns and Molotov cocktails, one
of the first acts of the Euromaidan street fighters was to unfurl a number of
flags and insignia. Prominent among the flags were swastikas, Iron Crosses,
Nazi SS lightning bolts, the Celtic cross used by the Ku Klux Klan, and the
Confederate “stars and bars” flag of slaveholders in the United
States. (tinyurl.com/ltfu4vq)...

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry flew to Kiev on March 4 and laid flowers
at the site of a memorial — to fascists who had died in the fighting that
toppled the legally elected Ukrainian government, headed by Viktor
Yanukovych....

The armed coup over the Feb. 22-23 weekend in Kiev, which
was with great probability supported by Washington, is momentous in many ways.
Within hours the coup trashed the agreement that took so long to be
hammered out in discussions led by the European Union and especially by
Germany; this agreement involved Moscow and was signed by the Ukrainian
opposition parties on the one hand and the government and President Viktor
Yanukovych on the other. Thus, not everyone in the West shared in the exuberant
joy shown after the overthrow. It has once again become clear that in relation
to the Ukraine and Russia, the U.S. and the EU, specifically Washington and
Berlin, act according to different and sometimes conflicting agendas....

Anti-war activists rallied in New York’s Times Square in the bitter
cold on Feb. 27 to protest the U.S. and European Union’s blatant
intervention that is promoting fascist elements against the people of Venezuela
and Ukraine. The International Action Center and Fight Imperialism, Stand
Together (FIST), a youth organization that had scheduled a regional conference
here on March 2, called the action, which other anti-imperialists joined....

As internationalists living in the most powerful imperialist country in the
world, it is incumbent upon us to always pay attention to the international
situation. If you don’t pay attention to it, it can overwhelm you. The
present crisis in Ukraine is a case in point....

On Dec. 15, Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), with the
full tacit support of Washington, traveled to Ukraine uninvited and spoke to
demonstrators who are trying to overthrow the elected government. These
demonstrators are protesting President Viktor Yanukovych’s refusal to
sign a trade deal with the European Union....

The present crisis in Ukraine and the Crimean peninsula was provoked by the
seizure of political power in Kiev by proxies of the U.S. imperialists and
their junior partners in the European Union. This seizure of power, by political subversion and fascist shock troops in the streets, if successfully consolidated, would bring a regime of pro-imperialist collaborators to the southern borders of Russia. This provocative act of aggression by Western imperialism threatens the sovereignty of Ukraine and the stability of the region. It courts the danger of war. ...

The longstanding policy of the bourgeois government of Ukraine, as well as
the global economic crisis, have created intolerable living conditions for the
majority of its citizens. During the last half of the Yanukovych regime, a
significant part of the solution to the economic problems was promised through
European integration. The sudden abandonment of the announced plans provoked
widespread discontent and actions. The process was classless and largely
spontaneous. A nationalist movement was used by the liberal opposition as the
street strike force, and thereafter the nature of the protest acquired
anti-communist or even fascist traits....

The bloody interventionist hand of US imperialism abounds. Whether it is in
the Ukraine or in Venezuela, right-wing forces that support and want to
continue austerity measures, or reverse the revolutionary progress made in
Venezuela by the Chavez/Maduro administrations that benefits the workers and
the poor of Venezuela are taking center stage right now emboldened by their
backers in Washington....

Destroying the Ukraine government through an armed insurrection is part
of a broader strategy by U.S. imperialism to colonize the former Soviet
republics and encircle Russia. The right-wing forces now running Kiev would let
the Ukrainian masses become debt slaves to U.S., French and German
banks. Washington has escalated its global campaign of reactionary subversion from Ukraine to Venezuela. A takeover in Ukraine would bring the Pentagon and Wall Street to the borders of Russia. In Venezuela, the Bolivarian Revolution is crucial to the bloc of countries resisting U.S. imperialist
domination in Latin America....

Providence, R.I. — A multinational grouping of women came together on
Feb. 8 for the first Women’s Assembly Planning Committee meeting. The
committee is organizing a Women of All Colors Assembly in Providence on
International Women’s Day, March 8....

Almost every city in Bosnia-Herzegovina has been shaken by a
series of mass demonstrations that started Feb. 4. Government officials have
been forced to resign amid mass workers’ uprisings and assemblies in a
country that was once part of the former (socialist)
Yugoslavia....

U.S. and European Union imperialism have initiated an offensive against the
Ukrainian government. It is part of their attempt to reconquer parts of the
former Soviet Union and surround, weaken and destroy Russia....

The largest and most militant of France’s five major trade union
confederations, the CGT, filed 148 “strike notices” for actions to
take place on Feb. 6. The unions hit growing income inequality and raised
concerns about employment, wages, working conditions, public services and
benefits. They called for “another division of society’s
wealth.”...

Most progressive activists in the United States probably know about the
reactionary, racist Koch brothers. But one has to wonder when a New York Times
editorial (online Jan. 25) publicly worries about the financiers of the Tea
Party and their growing influence on the political system....

More than 1,000 student volunteers, along with rank-and-file workers and
professionals from the northern and western cities of the U.S., traveled to
Mississippi and southwest Tennessee in the summer of 1964 to assist African
Americans in their decades-long struggle to acquire the right to vote....

In the Boston working-class neighborhood of Dorchester, hundreds of labor
and community leaders and rank-and-file workers jammed the streets Feb. 1 in
front of the headquarters of one of the planet’s biggest conglomerate
corporations, Veolia Transportation. Their voices, music and drumming filled
the air with demands for “Union justice now!” and “Down with
Veolia’s union busting!”...

The appeal went out: “Just like Dr. King said in 1965, ‘Come to Selma!’; we’re saying in 2014, ‘Come to Raleigh!’” And come they did. Over 80,000 demonstrators took part in the Moral March on Raleigh, Historic Thousands on Jones Street (HKonJ) People’s Assembly on Feb. 8....

One after another, the mostly West African immigrant
SuperShuttle workers poured out their grievances in front of the Veolia
transportation headquarters in Baltimore on Jan. 20 — the Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. holiday — expressing their anger at what they described
as near-slavery working conditions. Global transportation giant Veolia, which
owns SuperShuttle, is notorious for its anti-worker activities....

Local 32BJ of the Service Employees union organized a protest on Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. Day, Jan. 20, to demand the day as a paid holiday for airport
contract workers. Hundreds of workers marched across the LaGuardia Airport
access bridge in Queens, N.Y., after the airlines and the Port Authority of New
York & New Jersey repeatedly refused to make MLK Day a paid holiday. These
workers also want 32BJ recognized as their union....

For the fifth year in a row, the rank-and-file autoworker advocacy group
Autoworker Caravan protested outside the North American International Auto Show
at Cobo Hall, in Detroit, on Jan. 12. This protest’s theme was the demand
for a “people’s recovery.” In an Occupy-style mike check and
skit, the question of “whose recovery?” was asked several
times....

Thousands of teachers, students and their families and progressive
organizations shook Puerto Rico’s local government as they went to the
streets all over the island on Jan. 14 and 15 to demand that the cost of
PR’s severe economic crisis is not carried on the backs of the public
school teachers....

An 11-week strike by 7,000 members of South Africa’s National Union of
Mineworkers (NUM) has resulted in a settlement granting them a raise of 9.5
percent. The strike against Northam Platinum facilities at Zondereinde was a
major challenge for the NUM in the face of intransigence by the bosses and
competition from the rival Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union
(AMCU)....

A mid-January mass rebellion in one neighborhood of a mid-sized city in
north-central Spain beat back a rightist City Hall government and sparked
solidarity protests in nearly 50 other cities. This first working-class victory
since the capitalist crisis exploded in 2008 has turned the name of the area
— Gamonal — into a cry of resistance that could reverberate from
Athens to Detroit....

Amiri Baraka — an award-winning poet, playwright and Black
revolutionary — died on Jan. 9 at the age of 79 in Newark, N.J.,
following a short illness. He was a supporter of many left-wing causes,
including the ongoing struggle to free political prisoners like Mumia
Abu-Jamal. In 2009, the Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture held a 75th birthday tribute event for Baraka in Harlem, N.Y. A memorial and funeral
were held for Baraka at Newark Symphony Hall on Jan. 18, where thousands of
people attended to celebrate his life and immeasurable political and cultural
contributions. The following are excerpts from the obituary that was
distributed at the memorial....

The federal holiday that commemorates martyred civil rights, social justice
and peace activist Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. takes on added significance
this year in light of the renewed attacks on municipalities throughout the
United States. Workers and students in public educational institutions are
facing massive layoffs and school closings, while local government employees
are threatened with job elimination and the theft of pensions and health care
programs....

A 50-person committee to draft an amended Egyptian constitution completed
its work. The military-appointed regime that came to power through an army coup
on July 3 of last year is encouraging people to vote in the upcoming national
referendum on Jan. 14-15....

Thousands of south Korean railroad workers ended their strike Dec. 30 after
three weeks of intense struggle against the right-wing, anti-labor regime of
President Park Geun-hye. It was the longest railroad strike in the history of
Korail, the national railroad company. This intense class conflict has now
moved to parliament, where a committee made up of the government and opposition parties will make decisions....

When the police in Cambodia shot and killed four people Jan. 3 during a
workers’ demonstration calling for higher wages in the garment industry, it got the attention of the media in the imperialist world. The story, as they presented it, was a simple one: The Cambodian government was repressing workers seeking a living wage....

The year was 1965. The U.S. government’s war in Vietnam was
increasingly unpopular, especially among the young people being drafted and
sent there. The movements of oppressed peoples for liberation were also
growing, often inspired by the anticolonial struggles and the resistance of the
Vietnamese....

A statement issued Jan. 1 by the Moratorium NOW!
Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions & Utility Shutoffs has put the
spotlight on Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr’s sworn testimony that
he was allegedly set to legally challenge Bank of America and United Bank of
Switzerland on the grounds of fraud and other counts, but decided not to pursue
them....

Starting last March and again during the December holiday rush, the German
service workers’ union Ver.di, which is organizing the workers at
Amazon’s German operation, has conducted a series of short strikes in the
company’s warehouses demanding higher pay and union recognition....

Safe at home with her son in Brooklyn, where she will live, surrounded by a loving family and friends, Lynne described her four years in prison as horrible. She told of how she barely survived the life-threatening chemotherapy treatments. She stressed that she won’t forget the women that she left behind in the prison, and that she’ll fight for criminal justice system reforms. We also reflect back to this past summer and the many weeks that Ralph stood in front of the White House in Washington, D.C., in the rain and sweltering heat, with his signs, banner and leaflets; speaking to anyone who would listen about Lynne’s plight. He and a group of supporters protested in front of the U.S. Justice Department against the director’s refusal to approve Lynne’s request for compassionate release. Ralph said he saw no acceptable alternative other than to fight like hell for Lynne’s release. His unwavering love, spirit, strength and determination were contagious. How could anyone knowing him or Lynne not join in the struggle? Or not give up?
...

Could we build an activist organization to take on the most difficult, unpopular issues and defend the countries, people and individuals who are thoroughly demonized by the U.S. corporate media? Could we oppose racism, mass incarceration, and hunger at home, and link these crimes to endless U.S. wars abroad?...

Last month, a delegation from the International Action Center traveled to Honduras to assist with monitoring the presidential election there. Widespread fraud was expected and did indeed happen. The IAC delegation is unanimous in declaring the election as fraudulent. While in Honduras, the delegation also had the opportunity to meet with many Hondurans who have suffered under the brutal U.S. government-supported Honduran regime. One such meeting was in Comayagua, Honduras’ original capital, with the families of men murdered in a horrific prison fire. ...

Taken from a speech given by Army Gen. Raúl Castro Ruz, president of
the Councils of State and Ministers, at the funeral honors for the historic
leader of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, in Johannesburg, Dec. 10, 2013, Year 55
of the Revolution....

South Africa’s masses poured into the streets and assigned venues to
mourn the death and celebrate the life and struggles of Nelson Rohlihahla
Mandela. From formal memorial services in Johannesburg to Mandela’s remains lying in state in Pretoria, to community gatherings and those at his residences, all culminating in the state funeral in Qunu, people from inside the country and internationally expressed their grief and appreciation for the heroic contributions of one of the most notable political figures of the 20th and early 21st centuries. At the official memorial services on Dec. 10, which took place at the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg where the 2010 World Soccer Cup was held, more than 100,000 people gathered inside and around the stadium to express their condolences. There was live streaming of the memorial as well as activities surrounding the stadium....

With strong, almost universal support from the corporate
media, the United States government along with the European Union is carrying
out a propaganda blitz while threatening sanctions against the government of
Ukraine....

Fascist elements from the Svoboda organizations have been playing an
increasingly active role in a protest movement in Kiev of the country’s
wealthiest sectors, who are demanding that Ukraine orient its politics and
economy toward the imperialist European Union. The following was posted online Dec. 10 at kpu.ua by the press service of the Central Committee of the Lenin Komsomol of Ukraine (Young Communists)....

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine expressed its deep
condolences upon the death of the South African national symbol of struggle and
solidarity against the apartheid regime, a friend of liberation movements
around the world, the leader Nelson Mandela....

Nelson Mandela’s death has drawn responses from throughout the U.S.
and the world. To oppressed and working people, Mandela was a symbol and
example of self-sacrifice and lifelong commitment to revolutionary change....

The Congress of South African Trade Unions joins all South
Africans, and millions more all over the world, in mourning the sad loss today,
5 December 2013, of the greatest ever South African and most inspirational
leader in our struggle for liberty and democracy, our beloved Comrade, Nelson
Rolihlahla Mandela....

Just after an extended period of time in lockdown, one of the Cuban Five
political prisoners inside the U.S., Hero of the Republic of Cuba Gerardo
Hernández Nordelo, dedicated this short message to the memory of Nelson
Mandela....

Last night, the millions of the people of South Africa, majority of whom the
working class and poor, and the billions of the rest of the people the world
over, lost a true revolutionary, President Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, Tata
Madiba....

When Latin America is under attack, what do we do? Stand up fight back! The
revolutionary youth of FIST - Fight Imperialism, Stand together want to send a
solidarity delegation to the World Festival of Youth and Students (WFYS) in
Quito, Ecuador this December! The WFYS is an exciting anti-imperialist
gathering where of tens of thousands of young people from around the world to
share their struggles and learn from each other. The Festival is held every
several years, usually in a nation that engaged in a struggle against
imperialism....

On Nov. 18, thousands of protesters came out into the streets throughout Haiti to say, “Down with Martelly!” They were commemorating the 210th anniversary of the battle of Vertières, when Jean-Jacques Dessalines led his forces to decisive victory in Haiti’s revolutionary war against its French slave masters....

The capitalist 1% class is trembling at the specter of a union victory at Walmart, the largest multinational corporation in the world. On Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year, shoppers did not just find cheap goods. They encountered some class truth....

Every year the International Action Center organizes a national mailing to our many friends and supporters. Donations from this mailing help sustain the Solidarity Center, the home of so many struggles against racism, cutbacks and war....

The Honduran people remain in a state of organized “tense calm” a day after the country’s Supreme Electoral Council (TSE) declared ruling National Party leader Juan Orlando Hernández the winner in the polls, supposedly defeating Libertad y Refundación (Libre) party candidate Xiomara Castro de Zelaya. Hondurans had turned out in record numbers to vote for Castro de Zelaya, and Libre has denounced the TSE for committing fraud in the elections, and is organizing its base, made up of all sectors of Honduran working-class society....

This week a delegation will travel to Honduras to show our solidarity with
the resistance there during the country’s national elections. This will
be the third time the International Action Center has sent a delegation to
Honduras. The first was in October 2009, when democratically elected President
Mel Zelaya was overthrown in a U.S.-supported coup. We were able to witness
with our own eyes a burgeoning and exciting resistance movement incorporating
all sectors of Honduras’s working class....

A presidential election is taking place in Honduras today
that polls indicate will reverse the 2009 coup. Progressive and human rights
organizations have reported on the military’s last-minute attempts to
intimidate international observers who have come to ensure a fair and free
election process....

On Nov. 6, the Colombian Government and the FARC-EP insurgency published a joint statement regarding the agreement reached on the second item on the agenda of the peace negotiations that have been underway in Havana, Cuba. The point in question is “political participation.”...

From the night of Nov. 10 to early the next morning, protesters filled Athen’s Syntagma Square in front of the Greek parliament. Syriza, the left party with the largest number of seats and votes in parliament, had filed a censure motion against the government and called its supporters to come out in support....

The multinational working class of New York City — who seemed to have been submerged as a political factor during the long reign of Wall Street billionaire Michael Bloomberg — have elected a new mayor who gives the appearance, at least, of being Bloomberg’s opposite. And that is what was important about this election....

A New York City rally on Oct. 24 commemorated the 75th anniversary of the minimum wage law’s passage and called for increasing it to at least $15 an hour. A city public sector union speaker stressed that U.S. law does not recognize minimum wage rights for people with disabilities. They don’t receive equal pay for equal work....

Boston’s school bus drivers’ union, Steelworkers Local 8751,
continues to garner support from parents, unions and community leaders in the
face of an ongoing attack by the multinational conglomerate Veolia against the
union and its leaders....

Solidarity Day for the Boston School Bus Union 5 drew
hundreds of drivers from Steelworkers Local 8751, in addition to supporters
from near and far today. An immediate measure of its success could be seen on
the nightly television news. For the first time since Oct. 8, when the union
was illegally locked out by Veolia Transportation, the workers’ side of
the story was finally revealed....

We, the International League of Peoples’ Struggle, appeal to all our
global region committees, national chapters, member-organizations, our friends
and all the people of the world to carry out a campaign of raising resources
and delivering them to the millions of people afflicted by super typhoon
Yolanda (Haiyan) in 35 provinces in the central part of the Philippines....

Haiyan, a disastrous Class 5 super-typhoon, just roared
across the Philippines with winds believed to have set new records for this
type of storm. It was so destructive that, as of this writing, authorities
there have not been able to provide even an estimate of the carnage....

The following letter is a rebuttal to an Oct. 9 public attack against the
Boston School Bus Drivers Union, Steelworkers 8751 by Marie St-Fleur, an aide to lame duck Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and a former Massachusetts State Representative. Andre Francois is Local 8751 recording secretary and one of the School Bus Union 5, suspended by union-busting corporation Veolia....

A U.S.-sponsored military coup in Honduras on June 29, 2009, ousted elected
President Manuel “Mel” Zelaya. Since that time, his spouse, Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, has become a leading figure in the movement to restore his presidency as well as a leader in the burgeoning resistance movement for the rights of all throughout the country...

The main Portuguese union federation, the CGTP-IN, reported Oct. 19 that
“Many tens of thousands of workers marched today in the two major cities
of our country and on the islands of Madeira and the Azores. Their goal was to
defend the gains of the April 1974 [anti-fascist] revolution, and raise demands
against exploitation and impoverishment, and that the government resign....

Tens of thousands of students, teachers and parents in Spain marched Oct. 24
to protest cutbacks in education and a new education “reform” act
that cuts funding of universities, raises tuition fees, places obstacles on
university study grants and requires annual exams for students....

On Oct. 24, community activists, students, members of the Occupy Wall Street
movement, labor unionists and underpaid workers from every industry will rally
to mark the 75th anniversary of the first minimum wage law. They will demand an
increase from the current federal hourly minimum wage of $7.25 to $15....

When Veolia Transportation committed an unfair labor practice lockout of 700
school bus drivers in Boston on Oct. 8 and suspended five leaders of
Steelworkers Local 8751, the city’s corporate media began attacking the
union leaders....

Since Oct. 8, the school bus drivers in Steelworkers Local 8751 have faced a continuously hostile barrage from anti-union employer Veolia, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, Boston Public Schools officials and the corporate media. On Oct. 8, the school bus drivers refused to drive until Veolia agreed to meet to discuss the company’s failure to adhere to the collective bargaining agreement they signed on June 18, 2013....

Even though its responsibility for introducing and spreading cholera in
Haiti has been irrefutably established, the United Nations has refused to take
any responsibility for the 8,300 deaths and 650,000 cases due to cholera in
Haiti since 2010....

The main Portuguese union federation, the CGTP-IN, reported Oct. 19 that
“Many tens of thousands of workers marched today in the two major cities
of our country and on the islands of Madeira and the Azores. Their goal was to
defend the gains of the April 1974 [anti-fascist] revolution, and raise demands
against exploitation and impoverishment, and that the government resign....

Thursday, October 24, people across the country–fast food workers, immigrant workers, trade unionists, community activists, underpaid workers from every industry, progressive activists working on many issues, and members of the Occupy Wall Street movement – will mark the 75th anniversary of the minimum wage. Seventy-five years ago this Thursday, the first minimum wage in the U.S. went into effect. In the summer of 1938, Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act. The act mandated that, beginning on October 24 of that year, employers would have to pay a minimum of at least 25 cents an hour to most workers....

Seventy-five years ago this Thursday, the first minimum wage in the U.S. went into effect. In the summer of 1938, Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act. The act mandated that, beginning on October 24 of that year, employers would have to pay a minimum of at least 25 cents an hour to most workers. This first minimum wage was an important part of the groundbreaking New Deal legislation. It came into being as a result of many years of struggle on the part of a growing labor movement and the mass movement of poorly paid and brutally exploited workers during the economic depression of the 1930s. Seventy-five years ago, the government and big business was finally forced to recognize that the people would no longer allow millions of workers to live on starvation wages, while the super-rich 1% enjoyed bigger and bigger profits.
...

October 15 Ad Hoc Coalition to hold Press Conference at the Colombian Consulate to express support for the peace process in Colombia and call for an end to union repression in that country. The case of unionist Huber Ballesteros will be highlighted. Solidarity with the social justice movement in Colombia will also be expressed....

Historical events were plentiful in Colombia this past year: agricultural
strikes, peace negotiations, people’s assemblies, large student
demonstrations — in short, dynamism in social movements. Although the
upsurge has not been massive enough to change the balance of power, it has been
enough to give everyone a glimpse of the path toward hope for this
country’s people, for whom hope up to now has been denied....

Articles in the capitalist press say that big business is
losing its sway with the Republican Party. But this is a false way to view
what’s happening. Big business has lost control of a right-wing
ideological faction in the House of Representatives that big business created
in the first place....

The Baltimore Peoples Power Assembly and the “We Deserve Better” Workers Assembly have voted and consented at our recent organizers meeting to endorse and attend a protest this Friday, Oct 11th called by Local 17 of American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) who initiated a rally and protest of the government shut down. They are inviting all community groups, other workers and unions, students and activists to bring signs and join the protest....

Beginning at 2 p.m. on Oct. 3, all the ruling-class media ran nonstop
coverage about a car chase that took place in the heavy security area of
Washington, D.C. The chase involved a driver who crashed gates in front of
the White House and on Capitol Hill. Cameras focused on a full mobilization of
D.C. Metropolitan and Capitol Hill police, along with the FBI and other armed
federal agencies....

In solidarity with the 75th Anniversary of the passing of the minimum wage law there will be a massive direct action to support raising the minimum wage to at least 15 dollars for all workers. All groups, movements and organizations are welcome to help us organize for this great day of action scheduled for Herald Sq at 4 pm on Oct. 24th.
...

38 a month! That’s the monthly minimum wage for more than 4 million garment
workers in Bangladesh, most of whom are women. Many children also work in these
factories. This is the lowest clothing industry pay in the world, less than
half the pay in many other formerly colonized countries....

Cupboards will be bare next year for nearly 4 million people in the United
States if the bill cutting the food stamp program, which was passed by the
Republican majority in the House on Sept. 19, becomes law. They voted to cut
this life-saving program by $40 billion over 10 years....

Sept. 30 — Activists in this beleaguered city are in the final days of
organizing for an International People’s Assembly Against the Banks and
Against Austerity. It is set for Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 5 and 6, at Grand
Circus Park in downtown Detroit. The event coincides with the Oct. 5 five-year
anniversary of the federal bailout that netted the biggest banks more than $700
billion in workers’ tax monies....

It’s now time for the rest of us to step up to the plate and make the fight to raise workers’ wages, to demand a $15 an hour minimum wage a major political issue.; By doing this we give those workers who are fighting on the job the important support they need and we spread this beyond the doors of McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Burger King, beyond Walmart and the big box stores, to all workers who need this a raise more than ever....

Greece’s Prime Minister Antonis Samaras is making positive
predictions: Unemployment has gone from 27.8 percent to 27.1 percent, though
for youth under 25 it remained at 59 percent in the last quarter. He claims
that in six years the economy should be back to where it was in 2008....

Haiti and the huge problems facing its people have dropped out of the news
recently. The Washington Post and the New York Times call the reason
“donor fatigue.” However, that doesn’t mean the tremendous difficulties Haiti faced before the January 2010 earthquake, which were worsened by that disaster, have lessened. It only means the big-business press have stopped talking about them....

We call on all activists fighting banker-imposed austerity – here in the
U.S. and worldwide – to come to Detroit, Michigan, on October 5 and 6,
2013. Join the people of this city under siege in convening the International
People’s Assembly Against the Banks and Against Austerity.
...

Detroiters are mobilizing to defend city workers’ pensions and city
services in the wake of the municipal bankruptcy filed by Emergency Manager
Kevyn Orr. This Wall Street bankruptcy attorney was appointed by
Michigan’s reactionary Gov. Rick Snyder to essentially act as a receiver
over the city, supplanting the elected mayor and City Council.

On Sept. 7, about 500 people attended a rally sponsored by U.S. Rep. John
Con­yers and chaired by Professor Michael Eric Dyson, with panelists
including the Rev. Wendell Anthony, president of the Detroit NAACP; City
Councilwoman Joann Watson; Al Garrett, president of American Federation of
State, County and Municipal Employees Council 25; and columnist Julianne
Malveaux. The speakers stressed the need for mass mobilization in the streets
to challenge the racist Wall Street attack on Detroit, a majority
African-American city....

Journalist Nick Turse’s study, entitled “AFRICOM’s
Gigantic ‘Small Footprint,’” reviews the increasing role of
the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) at TomDispatch.com. It illustrates
why this issue should become a major focus of Western peace, anti-war and
anti-imperialist movements. Little attention has been paid to imperialist
interventions in the oppressed African nations....

We call on all activists fighting banker-imposed austerity – here in the
U.S. and worldwide – to come to Detroit, Michigan, on October 5 and 6,
2013. Join the people of this city under siege in convening the International
People’s Assembly Against the Banks and Against Austerity.
...

The current campaign of massacres and repression
launched by the Egyptian military constitutes a new and bloody chapter in the
decades-long war by the generals against the Muslim Brotherhood. But it
is more than that...

Troubled children often create imaginary friends and secret worlds to cope
with impossible realities. But what if imaginary friends became real and secret
worlds could be visited? “Beyond the Horse’s Eye: A Fantasy Out of Time” by Janet Rose is built around a fascinating concept: Empathy for all living things can be channeled into a powerful energy force. This exciting read is wise and full of intuition about pain, survival, rehabilitation and change. Science fiction is a very political medium in which hopes can be projected onto another galaxy or another dimension. With analogies and fantasy, it enables readers to envision the world they want and perhaps to formulate how to get there....

A national call for Justice for Trayvon Martin assemblies in U.S. cities on
Aug. 28, initiated by the People’s Power Assembly Movement, could not have come at a more crucial juncture. The devastating “not-guilty” verdict that came down on July 13 in the Sanford, Fla., trial of wannabe cop, George Zimmerman, in the Feb. 26, 2012, fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, was not only a blatant travesty of justice for this young African American. It was another wake-up call about the heinous racist war on people of color, especially the youth. The verdict was also a grim reminder that, especially with growing unemployment, Black, Brown and Indigenous young people’s lives are viewed as totally expendable by the powers-that-be and their legal and extralegal apparatus like the police, the courts, the prisons and vigilantes like Zimmerman....

U.S. and European diplomats, along with emissaries from Saudi
Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, have descended on Cairo to consult
with Egyptian generals and Muslim Brotherhood leaders in an attempt to find a
path to political and social stability after the brutal military coup
d’état of July 3....

Pyongyang, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea — Even on
normal days, this magnificent city proudly wears its history on its sleeve.
There are monuments and buildings everywhere dedicated to the almost
unimaginable sacrifices the Korean people have made to safeguard their
independence from would-be conquerors....

City of Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr, the figurehead named by
reactionary Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder to run Detroit and usurp its elected
political officials, filed a Chapter 9 bankruptcy on July 18, the largest
municipal bankruptcy filing in U.S. history.

Orr claims that the city is unable to pay its approximately $20 billion in
debt out of city revenues. Orr’s June 14 Proposal for Creditors and the
bankruptcy petition itself make it clear that the bankruptcy’s real goal
is to gut the pensions and benefits of Detroit’s over 20,000 retirees.
Most of the debt to the banks that caused Detroit’s financial crisis is
considered “secure debt,” to be paid despite the bankruptcy
filing....

Since Washington has already ordered the employment of air piracy in its
attempts to capture whistleblower Edward Snowden, no country has subsequently
offered to fly him out of Russia, where he has been trapped for three weeks at
Moscow’s airport....

When Barack Obama became the first African American to be elected president
of the United States in 2008, many bourgeois pundits proclaimed that the U.S.
could finally move toward becoming a “post-racial” society. This
notion was reinforced when Obama was reelected in 2012....

An unprecedented outpouring of millions of Egyptians from all across the
country has shown that the Egyptian revolution is not only alive but is on the
rise. Having accomplished the overthrow of dictator Hosni Mubarak by protracted
mobilization, enormous heroism and great sacrifice, the masses have once again
come into the streets to demand the fulfillment of the revolution that they
fought for in 2011....

On Christopher Street in New York City, the Stonewall Inn opened early on
the morning of June 26. At this small, working-class bar in late June 1969, a rebellion against
police raids gave rise to the modern lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and
queer movement. Now, 44 years later and 10 years after that movement forced the
U.S. Supreme Court to outlaw “sodomy” laws that criminalized
homosexuality, a crowd gathered waiting for the news....

The following excerpted points of unity were initiated by TransJustice of
the Audre Lorde Project, a lesbian, gay, bisexual, two-spirit, trans and gender
non-conforming people of color center for community organizing....

There are many historical examples of progressive political candidates who
ran on a progressive platform or were buttressed by a political movement of
oppressed nationalities or by a general upsurge of workers and the oppressed.
However, the recent Jackson, Miss., mayoral election victory of outgoing
Black City Councilperson Chokwe Lumumba provides an opportunity for
revolutionaries and progressive people not only to analyze what the victory
means for Jackson, the Black Belt South, all oppressed peoples and in general
but also raises the specter of the need to defend Lumumba and the people of
Jackson, a city that is 80 percent Black, from right-wing reaction....

When the Free Fare Movement (MPL) in Sao Paolo, Brazil,
initiated a call on social media for a demonstration on June 6 to protest an
increase of public transport fares in the city, no one imagined the enormous
response it would elicit and its political repercussions....

On 15 June, President Recep Erdogan told the demonstrators: “We have
our meeting at Kazlicesme tomorrow. Before it, if you don’t leave the
park, we will remove you with police.” After this meeting with Erdogan,
Taksim Dayanisma (Taksim Solidarity) decided to remove the tents, leaving only
one as a symbol. But the police didn’t wait for the resisters to remove
their tents. They attacked immediately....

Walmart workers across the United States resumed their strike at the end of
May and began caravaning toward Bentonville, Ark., the site of Walmart
headquarters and the company’s annual shareholders’ convention
scheduled for June 7. The morning of June 3 strikers and their supporters set
up picket lines in Bentonville....

Former members of the Kenyan Land and Freedom Army, popularly known as the
Mau Mau, along with others who were imprisoned and tortured beginning in 1952,
filed legal action in British courts demanding compensation for their
suffering....

On May 22, with cries of “That, that, that’s the way to
govern” and “They shall not return” (referring to the
right-wing oligarchy’s lust for power), the first graduating class of the
Jesus Rivero Bolivarian Workers University heard Venezuelan President
Nicolás Maduro’s proposal to create a Workers’ Militia in
workplaces around the country....

In a historic election, long-time Black political activist and civil rights
attorney Chokwe Lumumba was elected mayor of Jackson, Miss., on June 5, winning
a whopping 87 percent of the vote. For decades, Lumumba fought for the right to
self-determination for Black people. He was vice president of the Republic of
New Afrika, which demanded that the southeastern region of the U.S. be ruled
under the auspices of an independent Black government as part of reparations
for the unpaid labor of enslaved Africans and the continuing legacy of white
supremacy....

Honduras USA Resistencia and the Honduras Solidarity Network have issued a
call for Nationally Coordinated Days of Actions for Honduras on June 28. These
actions will commemorate the 2009 coup in that country and express solidarity
with the resistance movement in Honduras. The International Action Center and
other organizations have endorsed....

Congratulations to every single person and organization that helped to make the
2013 Poor People’s Campaign March a tremendous success! For those who had
the privilege of participating it was truly historical. For those of you who
could not be there in person, but who sent your support and solidarity, you too
were there in every one of our footsteps. There is so much to write about that
inspired us: the courageous delegation of women from Selma, Alabama, who drove
the entire night -- after their bus was cancelled -- to be able to speak in
defense of voting rights, their rendition of Freedom Songs kept us marching and
marching; the young children and participants with disabilities, seniors who
walked with canes, who wouldn’t stop; the families and victims of police
terror, especially the tenacious and spirited group who came from the Justice
for Alan Blueford Coalition in Oakland, California; the group of occupy youth
and members of Guitarmy who marched all night; the organizers like Bob Ross,
Prince Georges County NAACP head, who helped keep the march going; the OUR
Walmart workers who inspired marchers to defy Walmart bosses and County Police
and set up a picket right at the Super Walmart’s doors....

New York — A cabal of bourgeois higher education policy wonks, media
moguls and bankers have devised a scheme that undermines the academic
foundation of the 166-year-old City University of New York. CUNY is the largest
urban university in the United States and provides education to more than half
a million students on 24 campuses....

Republican politicians and
reactionary media outlets have joined the ultrarightist Tea Party types in an
all-out attack on the Internal Revenue Service and, by extension, on the Barack
Obama administration. Instead of meeting this unwarranted and unsubstantiated
attack head-on the way it deserves, the Democrats have caved in, forcing the
IRS to apologize to the rich ultrarightists....

On the afternoon of May 20, a force equal to 600 times the Hiroshima atomic
bomb’s power struck the city of Moore, Okla. The giant tornado, 1.3 miles
wide, cut a swath over 17 miles long, killing at least 24 people, ten of them
children, and injuring 327 others. Over 13,000 homes and other structures were
destroyed, with property damage expected to top $2 billion....

The Poor People’s March began May 11 in
Baltimore at the site of the police killing of Anthony Anderson, Sr., an
unarmed African-American, and arrived the next day in Freedom Plaza in
Washington, D.C....

Washington, D.C. — The second day of the Poor People’s March
for Jobs and Justice, May 12, began with excitement as women from the National
Coalition of Leaders to Save Section 5 (of the Voting Rights Act), who drove
from Selma, Ala., took the lead of the march with other women on Mothers’
Day. It was Coretta Scott King who led the first poor people’s campaign
on Mothers’ Day 45 years ago.
A handful of marchers who had elected to walk through the night joined the
larger group to applause for their high spirits. Everyone marched the last
10-mile segment of the 41-mile trek from Baltimore to Washington, D.C...

Within hours of the start of the Poor People’s Campaign and March,
which headed from Baltimore to Washington, D.C., on May 11, words had turned
into action. Some hundreds of marchers defied Baltimore County cops who were
blocking the way at a Walmart Supercenter in Halethorpe, Md.

Most marchers wove their way past the police and made it to the doors of the
mammoth retailer, where they shouted, “Walmart, union! Walmart,
union!” and “Walmart, slave wages” as they blocked traffic in
the parking lot. The police, who physically abused Black women marchers, made
it clear they were there to protect Walmart’s “private
property.”...

Saturday, May 11, 2013, community, civil rights, union
and student activists will reclaim the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s
legacy by staging a two-day march entitled, “2013 Poor Peoples Campaign & March,” from the city of Baltimore to Washington, D.C. Groups will plan a national strategy to fight new austerity measures along with major social issues including police brutality and mass incarceration. The demonstration will begin at 10 a.mn Baltimore at Biddle Street and North
Montford Avenue, the site where Anthony Anderson Sr. was killed by Baltimore
police on Sept. 21, 2012. Anderson’s death, ruled a homicide by city
medical examiners, is one of many cases of the growing epidemic of police
brutality across the country....

Any real war on terror would start by hunting down those responsible for the
textile factory collapse outside Dhaka, Bangladesh. Start from the bottom, round up the subcontractors who place the job orders. Then the garment factories owners who ordered workers back into the Rana plant. They ignored the big crack in the wall. Then the building’s owner who swore it was safe....

Tens of thousands of workers marched through central Dhaka,
Bangladesh’s capital, on May Day to demand the death penalty for the
owner of the Rana Plaza building that collapsed April 24 killing more than 525
workers, most of them young women, and injuring 2,500 more who were found
trapped in the rubble. Hundreds of young workers are still unaccounted for and
believed dead under the factory’s ruins....

A number of immigrant, labor and progressive organizations joined the May
1 Coalition for Worker & Immigrant Rights at an April 29 press
conference in front of the Manhattan office of Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to
announce plans for May Day 2013 in New York. Immigrant rights groups expressed
their concern and disappointment with the “Gang of 8” proposal on
immigration reform. The eight refers to the number of senators —
Democrats (including Schumer) and Republicans — who are the main
architects of this divisive bill....

In Savar, an industrial suburb of Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital, at
least 300 workers, mostly women, died at the Rana Plaza garment factory
building collapse on April 24. In addition to the appalling number of
deaths, more than 1,200 were injured there in the worst industrial
disaster ever to befall this country....

An inspiring and electrifying meeting was held at the
Solidarity Center in New York City on April 25 featuring Mariela Castro
Espín, the director of the Cuban National Center for Sex Education
(CENESEX) in Havana, Cuba, and a deputy of the Cuban parliament, the National
Assembly of People’s Power. The meeting was sponsored by the
International Action Center. ...

What will happen to our Social Security benefits? This question is
being asked by the program’s 56 million recipients in response to the
Obama administration’s proposal to cut the annual cost-of-living raise
for all who receive these monthly checks, as part of his 2014 budget....

One million Colombians marched in the capital city of Bogotá as well as
other cities and towns on April 9 to show their support of peace negotiations
between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-Peoples
Army (FARC-EP). Talks which began in Oslo, Norway, in 2012 are now continuing
in Havana, Cuba....

As many as 250,000 students took to the streets in Santiago and other
Chilean cities on April 11, renewing their demands for education reform.

After two years of student marches that have paralyzed Chile’s major
cities and generated expectations of change to a troubled system, the crisis
over education reform remains a key electoral issue ahead of November’s
presidential election....

The International Action Center joins the Alliance for Global Justice, Witness for Peace-SW, National Lawyers Guild, Boston Bolivarians, National Network on Cuba, and all the organizations in the United States who are mobilizing to defend the Venezuelan election of President Nicolás Maduro and against U.S. interference in that country....

The International Action Center joins the Alliance for Global Justice, Witness for Peace-SW, National Lawyers Guild, Boston Bolivarians, National Network on Cuba, and all the organizations in the United States who are mobilizing to defend the Venezuelan election of President Nicolás Maduro and against U.S. interference in that country....

Fascist-like elements backed by U.S. imperialism are
attempting a coup against constitutional rule in Venezuela. The Venezuelan
masses, other Latin Americans and progressives worldwide are standing up and
saying “no” to this coup, which follows the rightist defeat in that
country’s free and fair election April 14....

Right-wing elements backed by U.S.
imperialism are attempting a coup against constitutional rule in Venezuela.
Seven people in Venezuela have already been killed. There is a witch hunt
against Cuban doctors who have made great sacrifice to provide health care
there. The Venezuelan masses, other Latin Americans and progressives worldwide
have stood up and said "no" to this coup, which follows the rightist
defeat in that country's free and fair election April 15....

Right-wing elements backed by U.S. imperialism are attempting a coup against constitutional rule in Venezuela. Seven people in Venezuela have already been killed. There is a witch hunt against Cuban doctors who have made great sacrifice to provide health care there. The Venezuelan masses, other Latin Americans and progressives worldwide have stood up and said “no” to this coup, which follows the rightist defeat in that country’s free and fair election April 15....

Join young people, poor people, community and workers’ rights activists; occupy veterans and the families of police killing victims from across the region and the country that will be commemorating the 50th anniversary of the historic 1963 March for Freedom and Jobs led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by MARCHING 41 MILES FROM BALTIMORE, MD TO WASHINGTON, D.C., on Sat., May 11, 2013,
which is the 45th anniversary weekend of the Poor People’s March
Dr. King was to lead before he was assassinated....

The
International Action Center reprints below an official statement from the Korean
People’s Army on the dangerous situation created by U.S. military moves
close to the boundaries of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
— north Korea....

We will discuss the Peopleâ€™s Power Assembly Movement;
Worker Assemblies, Student & Youth Assemblies and the May 11th Baltimore to
Washington D.C. March to commemorate the 45th year since the 1968 Poor Peoples
Campaign and to ignite a new Poor Peopleâ€™s
Campaign....

Chicago — The Rahm Emanuel administration and the Chicago Public
Schools, along with politically connected corporate interests, are making a
calculated move to turn the clock back for Black and Latino/a students to the
bad old days of Jim Crow apartheid “separate but equal”
schools....

Thousands of teachers, parents and community members rallied on March 27 in
the Chicago downtown area to protest Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to close
54 public schools — in the predominately African-American and Latino/a
communities — to erase a $1 billion deficit. The rally began in
Chicago’s Daley Plaza and was followed by a march to City Hall that ended
at the Chicago Public Schools headquarters....

Baltimore has become the capital of police killings! Since January, 2012, 16
people have been killed by the Baltimore City Police Department and not a
single officer has been indicted. The epidemic of police terror and abuse are
not confined to our city. The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement has documented that
every 36 hours a Black person is killed by police agencies in this country.
Police repression and racism go hand in hand with the mass incarceration of
young people, mostly of color, who are locked away in prisons across this
country. We march to bring national attention to these issues and to demand
community control of police and an end to mass incarceration. On May 11, 2013
we will link arms with the families of the victims of police killings to demand
that the Justice Department charge killer police....

When European Union leaders gathered at their economic summit meeting
in Brussels, they were confronted by thousands of protesters who denounced them
and their austerity policies. Working people and labor union
representatives from all over Europe demonstrated at the European Commission
and Council headquarters on March 14....

The July 26th Coalition, a solidarity group that supports the Cuban revolution, hosted a March 13 evening of information and open dialogue with two representatives of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) in New York City. The women were here participating in events held at the United Nations and hosted by the Commission on the Status of Women during International Working Women’s Month....

The death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has brought out the
malicious and carnal glee of the corporate press, who report breathlessly, not
only on his mortal passing, but an end to the Bolivarian Revolution.

They are the voices of their vampire, Wall Street bosses, who delight in
owning more of the earth, no matter how much misery they may cause for
millions....

The National Association of Letter Carriers has called for 100 rallies and
other protests on Sunday, March 24, 2013, to save postal jobs and to keep six-day delivery. The NALC call for a National Day of Action invites unions, small business customers, civic organizations and faith groups, as well as all postal workers, families, friends and neighbors, to gather outside specified post offices in the major cities of each state. “We want to make this fight about the
cost of losing Saturday mail delivery and how it would affect people in each
and every state,” NALC President Fredric Rolando said. The American Postal Workers Union, the National Postal Mail Handlers Union and the Rural Letter Carriers Union have all endorsed the March 24 rallies....

A coalition of community-based
women's organizations that has organized events for the past eight years
have announced plans for women's events in Manhattan, Harlem, Brooklyn and
the Bronx to celebrate women's struggles. The events include a rally and
march on March 9th, starting at the site of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist
Factory fire in Manhattan, and tributes to Harriet Tubman on March 10 at
Harlem’s African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, in Brooklyn at Boys and
Girls High on Sat. March 16 and in the Bronx at the Bronx Art Space Gallery on
Sunday, March 24. All events are open to the media and are free. There will
also be a special tribute March 9 to the late President Hugo Chávez of
Venezuela -- the leader of the ongoing Bolivarian Revolution that promotes the
rights of women especially those of African and Indigenous
descent....

Using an obscure, impersonal term — “sequester” —
U.S. finance capital is trying to put over European-style, across-the-board
budget cuts at the federal level. Shielded by the fog of political gridlock,
the bankers and financiers are testing the waters to see how far they can
go....

He came from humble beginnings from among the teeming millions in Venezuelan
poverty and joined the army as much to make a living as to serve the people.
He and a group of mid-level military officers staged an unsuccessful coup
in February, 1992 against the corrupt regime of President Carlos Andrés
Pérez. Within eight years, the man that led the coup would be elected
president and Hugo Chávez would proclaim Venezuela as home of the
revolutionary liberator, Simón Bolívar, who fought and prevailed
against Spanish colonialists for Latin American independence early in the 19th
century....

It was with profound and searing grief that our people and the Revolutionary
Government learned about the decease of President Hugo Chávez Frías
and are therefore preparing to pay a heartfelt and patriotic tribute to him,
for he will go down in history as a Hero of Our America....

Just days before an inspection team was due to check that Greece’s new
austerity measures were in place, tens of thousands of workers took to the
streets on Feb. 20 and shut the country down. The strikers made it clear that
“reforms” that leave patients without health care and drugs,
students without education, taxpayers without money, families with no one
employed, workers without labor rights and 68 percent of the youth without jobs
are really attacks on the Greek people and their standard of living. (Greek
Reporter, Feb. 20)...

It is not too late to RSVP for this important fundraiser
for the Mississippi Workers Center which fights for social justice in one of
the poorest states in the country. No one will be turned away for lack of funds
or for making a modest donation. There will also be a silent auction held
during the event....

Alex Jones, the ultra-right-wing radio host, has made a name for himself in
recent weeks by rabidly denouncing proposed gun control legislation. He yelled
at CNN interviewer Piers Morgan, but in his tirade Jones stated many historical
inaccuracies....

Millions of workers across the United States received a rude and unpleasant
jolt this January when they discovered that their take-home pay had just shrunk
by 2 percent. The Social Security payroll tax cut of 2009 was restored, costing
workers an average amount of $850 a year, a significant wage decrease for
workers on the edge of financial ruin....

The 500,000 members of Tunisia’s union federation shut down this North
African country’s major cities on Feb 8 as tens of thousands joined the
funeral march in Tunis of Chokri Belaïd, slain leader of the Unified
Patriotic Democratic Movement, a Marxist and pan-Arabist organization.
According to reports, masked killers gunned down Belaïd in his car on the
morning of Feb. 6 outside his home in Tunis....

La Coalición Primero de Mayo Por los Derechos de Los Trabajadores y Los
inmigrantes, invita a todas las organizaciones de la Ciudad de New
York, para discutir la planeación de la Marcha y Rally del
Primero de Mayo, celebrada desde el 2005. / The May 1st Coalition for Worker & Immigrant Rights invites everyone to the Citywide Meeting to discuss plans for the May 1st rally & march as well as for other events throughout the year. This event has been hosted by the Coalition annually since 2005 at Union Square
Park....

As a Cuba solidarity network, we lift our voices to tell Washington and the
Venezuelan elite: NO to destabilization efforts in Venezuela, which we fully
recognize is also aimed at Cuba's sovereignty. We say: "Hands off the
Bolivarian Revolution."...

New York — More than 8,000 school bus drivers who transport
152,000 pupils in this city every day, many of them children with special
needs, were forced to go on strike Jan. 16 to protect not only their jobs but
also the safety of the children they serve....

Two settlements were announced Jan. 7 in ongoing legal actions against the
major banks for abuses in placing millions of homes into foreclosure throughout
the U.S. But both only help banks, not homeowners....

Those in China who advocate bourgeois democracy, deepening capitalist
reforms and opening up further to imperialism staged a journalists’
rebellion the first week of January at the nationally circulated magazine
Southern Weekend, based in Guangzhou. Guangzhou, which is across the bay from Hong Kong, is the capital of Guangdong province, the stronghold of capitalism
in China....

Three years after the earthquake that killed 300,000 people on Jan. 12,
2010, reconstruction has barely begun in Haiti. Debris has been removed from
the streets in Port-au-Prince, Léogane and Pétionville, but at least
500,000 people are still living in tents — ripped, torn and tattered by
the storms and hurricanes that have hit this country in the last three
years....

Jan. 10 — The people of Venezuela poured into the streets by the
hundreds of thousands in the country’s four major cities today to defend
recently re-elected President Hugo Chávez and his government....

On Jan. 3, as part of its regular condition updates of President Hugo
Chávez following his Dec. 11 surgery, the government of the Bolivarian
Republic of Venezuela alerted “the Venezuelan public of a campaign of
psychological warfare unleashed by the international media regarding the health
of the head of state,” as the Jan. 10 date anticipated for the oath of
office for his new six-year presidential term nears....

On the morning of Sept. 12, 1973, Victor Jara, the internationally acclaimed
folk singer/writer, theater director, activist and musician, was taken along
with thousands of prisoners to the Chile Stadium in Santiago, Chile, where he
was repeatedly beaten and tortured. The bones in his hands were broken, as were
his ribs....

On the day that the country was supposed to fall over the “fiscal
cliff,” Congress finally voted for a bill on taxes and other measures
that kept the government solvent for another two months. The Obama
administration claimed victory over the Republican right wing....

The passage of the union-busting “right-to-work” law in Michigan
is a severe legal setback for the labor movement and for the workers, the
oppressed and all the progressive masses in the state. If not turned around, it
will encourage right-wing, anti-labor forces across the country....

During the 1990's, in Venezuela and in Latin America in general, when the poor were getting poorer and everyone's standard of living was declining precipitously, when we felt that the lights were going out and that our reasons for happiness were evaporating, Hugo Chavez provided his radiant light, the light of the people, of the liberator Simon Bolivar....

While this is not and legally cannot be an ILA- union initiated mobilization, it is supported by ILA rank-and-file leaders in solidarity with the Bangladeshi workers who lost their lives last month in the tragic fire, exploited with slave wages by Walmart and other corporate retail giants....

In Colombia union organizers operate under the threat of violence, torture,
and even death. More union organizers are killed in Colombia than in any other
country in the world. Corporations like General Motors take advantage of the
anti-union climate....

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder
wasted no time signing anti-labor, so-called “right-to-work” laws
passed today, disregarding the daylong protest of more than 12,000 workers and
community constituents. “The workers united will never be defeated”
echoed in the Capitol rotunda, while outside mounted Michigan State Police
pepper-sprayed laborers, many of them unemployed, and other workers to disperse
them. The rushed lame-duck enactment sought to make it a fait
accompli, but instead it is a declaration of war on the entire U.S.
working class and labor unions. A banner reading “General Strike to beat
back ‘right-to-work’ ’’ attracted much interest, as did
thousands of leaflets headlined: “Beat back ‘right-to-work’
Yes, WE CAN!” The Rev. Jesse Jackson called for a one-day work stoppage
and march on Washington, D.C.
...

For almost 500 days, Asotrecol, the Association of Injured Workers and
Ex-Workers of General Motors Colmotores, has been fighting for justice.
Colmotores, the GM assembly plant in Bogotá, Colombia, is a house of
horrors....

Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians have been demonstrating on both sides
with regard to a draft constitution for the North African state. President
Mohamed Morsi, whose Nov. 22 edict increasing his political powers sparked mass protests, has now announced a Dec. 15 date for a national referendum to approve or reject the controversial document. The Muslim Brotherhood, which is behind Morsi’s political party, and the Salafist Muslim organizations form a majority in the government and have a broad political base, which means the referendum would likely approve the new
constitution....

Oakland, Calif. — “Picket line means don’t
cross,” chanted striking Service Employees Local 1021 workers and their
community supporters as they picketed all seven terminals at the Port of
Oakland on Nov. 20. The workers had walked out in an unfair-labor-practices
dispute with the port....

Millions of people struck Nov. 14, and hundreds of thousands more poured
into the streets in an unprecedented, coordinated general strike against the
austerity measures that tear at the very bodies of the poor and working people
of Europe. People in 23 countries protested, coordinated by the European Trade
Union Confederation....

Under capitalism, especially here in the United States, so-called
“democracy” serves the wealthy. Whoever wins elections, the
Pentagon and weapons industry still get funding, imperialist wars and
occupations go on, the rich get tax breaks, while workers and the poor face
more layoffs, cutbacks and attacks....

The distribution site was buzzing with activity. Carloads and even a small
U-Haul truck of aid were contributed by many volunteers. The area was so heavy
with activity that Occupy Sandy organizers had to assign traffic coordinators
to make sure donations were not blocking traffic....

Harsh austerity measures have created an economic and social disaster that
affects tens of millions across Europe. Greece, Portugal and Spain are
particularly hard-hit. A coalition of New York Greek-Americans, groups in
solidarity with Greece and working people across Europe have called for a rally
at the United Nations Missions of Greece and the European Union on Wednesday,
November 14, 2012....

All activists fighting for real change need time, space and
discussion to grapple with the still unfolding crisis, total disarray and
infrastructure breakdown that has followed Hurricane Sandy. We need to prepare
for the corporate onslaught of the 'fiscal cliff' and evaluate months
of election saturation that dealt with none of the real issues facing the
planet....

Nearly a week after Hurricane Sandy struck, as cold weather sets in and a new nor’easter storm threatens on Nov. 7, over a million households remain without power in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Some New Jersey communities are also without natural gas as a result of storm damage and may remain so for six to eight months....

The storm that hit the U.S. East Coast Oct. 29 exposed the harm done by
capitalist priorities in the crucial areas of essential health care and
electric power for millions. Some 400 available industrial-scale generators sat unused while four major New York City hospitals located in flood zones and two New Jersey hospitals were forced to evacuate on an emergency basis. In the hospitals both the main energy source and emergency backup generators failed, providing the clearest possible example of bone- deep hospital and infrastructure maintenance cuts. Meanwhile, high-rise apartment houses and entire neighborhoods went for days without electric power. That meant days without drinking water, flush toilets, heat or functioning elevators. This creates life-threatening conditions, especially for seniors, the disabled and infants....

The material aid gathered will be delivered to hard hit communities in Brooklyn, Lower Manhattan, Jersey City, Queens and elsewhere in coordination with groups who heroically came to the forefront and provided assistance such as CAAAV, Occupy Sandy, Peoples Power Movement, Anakbayan and others. These groups came together faster than FEMA or the Red Cross, organizations who have billions of the people's money but who are stymied by bureaucracy and a lack of genuine concern for the people....

“I am the proud father of Alan Blueford, murdered by the
Oakland police,” stated Adam Blueford. His spouse, Jera­lynn
Blueford, added, “Alan’s murder was arbitrary, unnecessary and
racist. It’s sad to say but he was shot down because of the color
of his skin. They profiled him by saying he looked suspicious.”...

After ravaging much of the Caribbean, Hurricane Sandy has hit the United
States. As of this writing, more than 8 million people here are without power,
38 are reported dead and still counting, and the damage is reckoned at many
tens of billions of dollars. No numbers have been put on personal losses of the
masses of people in terms of their homes, cars, household possessions, let
alone irreplaceable personal items of precious, sentimental value....

In this series of articles, which began in March, it has been our contention
that the vilification, slander, character assassination and criminal charges
against Bo Xilai and his spouse, Gu Kailai, have been a smokescreen put up by
the current leadership of the Communist Party of China to conceal an intense
political struggle and suppress an emerging left force within the party.

Joining in this campaign, even leading it at times, have been the
imperialist media. They have worked in concert with the CPC leadership to
circulate every rumor, every unsubstantiated accusation against Bo and Gu to a
global audience and back to China. This so-called “free press”
without hesitation gave its verdict of “guilty as charged,” despite
the fact that neither Bo nor Gu has had any opportunity to state their cases to
China and the world, nor has the government produced any credible evidence
subject to open, adversarial examination....

With Hugo Chavez’s historic win this October, the Venezuelan people
have committed to carry forward the Bolivarian Revolution, with its advances in
social equality, human rights, community power, and more. Join us this January
to witness the presidential inauguration on January 10th, followed by visits to
different parts of the country. One of the focuses of this trip will be food
sovereignty, or how both the government and the people are taking back control
of the country’s agricultural and food systems. We will also explore
other areas of social transformation, including education, healthcare, and
direct citizen participation in the political process. There will also be trips
to beaches, parks, and other sites of interest....

With Hugo Chavez’s historic win this October, the Venezuelan people have committed to carry forward the Bolivarian Revolution, with its advances in social equality, human rights, community power, and more. Join us this January to witness the presidential inauguration on January 10th, followed by visits to different parts of the country. One of the focuses of this trip will be food sovereignty, or how both the government and the people are taking back control of the country’s agricultural and food systems. We will also explore other areas of social transformation, including education, healthcare, and direct citizen participation in the political process. There will also be trips to beaches, parks, and other sites of interest....

As famine lurks throughout Haiti and cholera
daily kills the weak, the very young and the old, the response of the Haitian
people has been growing militancy. In massive numbers they have taken to the
streets to demand an end to the corrupt regime of President Michel
Martelly....

On Oct. 15, New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority announced the
fourth round of fare hikes in four years. During that time the MTA has also
been on a cutback frenzy. Dozens of station booths have been demolished. The
transit agency has made it harder for people with disabilities to qualify for
Access-A-Ride....

A step forward toward building people’s power was taken in
Philadelphia when activists met on Sept. 26 in the western part of the city.
The People’s Power Assembly had been preceded by a series of speakouts
during the summer where community residents addressed the issues that concerned
them....

As the struggle goes on, the government investigation began into the unrest
surrounding the wildcat strike, led by rock-drill operators, at Lonmin Platinum
PLC. On Oct. 1, the proceedings in Rustenberg started with the reading of the
names of the 34 workers killed by police on Aug. 16.

Ian Farlam, the retired judge who is directing the Commission of Inquiry
into the Marikana tragedy, commented, “Our country weeps because of the
tragic loss, and this commission will work expeditiously to ensure the truth is
revealed.” (AllAfrica.com, Oct. 1)...

Money is the lifeblood of capitalism.More and more, the bankers have it
locked away in their vaults and don’t know what to do with it. They
already face that most irrational feature of capitalism,
“overproduction,” which to them means that corporations
aren’t expanding because there’s not much of a market for more
goods and services, so therefore companies aren’t borrowing money and the
bankers are stuck with cash that’s just sitting there, not drawing
interest....

While staying aware of its destructive capacity, we can expand our view if
we also examine its weaknesses. The Pentagon’s Achilles’ heel lies
within the contradictions of the capitalist system that created this
monstrosity....

Some 1 million of Portugal’s 11 million people held massive marches in
Lisbon, Oporto and 38 other cities and towns to condemn the austerity policies
of the troika — the European Union, the European Central Bank and the
International Monetary Fund — and of the three parties backing austerity
in Parliament....

Charlotte, N.C. — Over 300 Southern workers, trade unionists and
community allies gathered for the Southern Workers Assembly on Sept. 3, Labor
Day, the opening day of the Democratic National Convention. The Wedgewood
Baptist Church was packed and supporters had to stand beside the pews. There
was a feeling in the air that Southern labor was uniting to forge a historic
new direction, towards rank-and-file-led social justice trade unionism,
particularly to challenge right-to-work (for less) laws and combat racism....

Charlotte, N.C. — Called “the March on Wall Street South,”
a demonstration confronting the banks and corporations headquartered here that
are wreaking havoc across the country filled the uptown streets of this
Southern financial center on Sept. 2....

Charlotte, N.C. — Volunteer activists with the March on Wall Street South coalition are in high gear mobilizing for a week of protest actions Sept. 1-6 around the Democratic National Convention. These events include a Festivaliberacion on Sept. 1, a march and rally on Sept. 2, and a Southern Workers Assembly on Sept. 3....

The people must prepare to defend ourselves against the life-threatening and ever-intensifying economic and social misery that Wall Street and its politicians are imposing on us, including endless war....

Residents of Tampa Bay, Fla., are about to have their lives disrupted, not by a hurricane but by the heavily scripted exercise in political propaganda that is the Republican National Convention. Starting Aug. 27, roads and bridges will be closed, area businesses and schools shuttered, transportation services altered and heavily armed police will be everywhere. For four days, those who call Tampa Bay home will be excluded from the downtown convention area and subject to police search....

The International Action Center will be marching and urges all progressives to join in with the Coalition to March on the RNC in Tampa, FLA on August 27 . And on September 2, we will join with the Coalition to March on Wall St South;in Charlotte, NC for a March for Jobs and Justice at the start of the DNC....

Ed Childs, chief steward of UNITE HERE Local 26 in Boston, has been in Charlotte since Aug. 1, hitting the streets, meeting and talking with poor and working people throughout the city as part of organizing efforts for the March on Wall Street South on Sept. 2....

Organizing is in high gear for protests outside the Republican and Democratic National Conventions in Charlotte, N.C., and Tampa, Fla., respectively. In Charlotte, the Sept. 2 “March on Wall Street South” will target the big banks that are headquartered in that city as well as the Democrats’ role in keeping up the status quo of the wealthy 1% or ruling elite....

Charlotte, N.C. — Members and supporters of the March on Wall Street South: Building People’s Power at the DNC Coalition held an all-day national organizing conference at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte Aug. 11. With only three weeks left to mobilize for the coalition’s protest activities scheduled for Sept. 1-6 around the Democratic National Convention, organizers gave reportbacks, conducted workshops, made outreach plans, provided cultural presentations, developed relationships with other participants and much more. Events scheduled or supported by the coalition include the Festivaliberación Sept. 1, the major MOWSS march and rally Sept. 2, and the Southern Workers Assembly Sept. 3....

Gu Kailai’s trial and conviction for the alleged murder of British businessperson Neil Heywood is a show trial staged by the top leadership of the Communist Party of China for purely political purposes....

Can a dollar figure be put on the Olympics? The answer is yes, according to a July 25 CNN article entitled, “Is the Olympics worth more than Google?” The article dissects a report released by Brand Finance, a worldwide consultative firm, which reveals that the XXX Olympics in London are worth $47.5 billion, second only to Apple at $70.6 billion and just ahead of Google at $47.4 billion. This particular view is based on figures in the International Olympic Committee’s financial statements. The worth of the games is reportedly more than that of Coca-Cola, Samsung and General Electric....

China’s Olympic triumphs prove once again the transforming nature of revolutions.
The People’s Republic of China sent its first delegation of athletes to the 1952 Olympic summer games in Helsinki, Finland. Arriving late, they were able to participate in only one sporting event. Due to the imperialists refusing to recognize the Chinese communist government in Beijing, and instead declaring Taiwan the representative of China in the Olympics, the PRC boycotted the summer games for the next 32 years....

Black Zimbabweans lost their land during the colonial era, beginning in the late 19th century. In 1998 it became clear that the Republic of Zimbabwe in southern Africa would take action regarding long-delayed promises to distribute land to African farmers...

Mobilizing has begun around the country for the March on Wall Street South: protest actions between Sept. 1 and 6 around the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. Activities will include a Sept. 1 Festivaliberación!, focused on youth, students and immigrants; a Sept. 2 March on Wall Street South; and a Sept. 3 Southern Workers Assembly....

The most important question raised by the latest massacre in Colorado remains unasked by the corporate media: What is it about social conditions in the United States that promotes these terrible tragedies?...

Hundreds of striking coal miners marched 285 miles from Asturias on Spain’s north coast to the capital city of Madrid, where thousands of other workers joined them as they entered the city. Hundreds of thousands of others came to show solidarity as the miners’ three-week trek ended with a massive demonstration on July 11....

After a major victory last month that won permits to march, organizers with the Coalition to March on Wall Street South are moving forward with their plans for demonstrations before and during the Democratic National Convention. The convention will be held in Charlotte, N.C., during the first week of September....

On June 23, activists from the International Action Center joined in solidarity with the Peoples Organization for Progress at a rally in Newark, N.J. Held in the heart of the city’s downtown shopping district, this rally was the 363nd consecutive daily protest. POP intends to continue until the number of days equals the number of days of the 1955 Montgomery, Ala. bus boycott that sparked the Civil Rights Movement....

Another right-wing coup d’état has toppled a democratically elected president in Latin America. Three years after the coup in Honduras that deposed President Manuel Zelaya in June 2009, the same forces have overthrown President Fernando Lugo in Paraguay....

During the past three years, the Turkish state has imprisoned some 8000 citizens under the guise of fighting terrorism. In a wave of detentions known as the “KCK operations,” it has targeted activists, academics, journalists, lawyers, students, elected officials, translators and publishers on account of their democratic activities in support of the rights demanded by Kurdish citizens in Turkey....

Cars, buses and vans of labor and community activists will form a Caravan to Washington, DC, in the early hours of Thursday, June 28, to join a mushrooming national hunger strike to save postal services and jobs....

The world crisis in education and the attack on public workers is the theme for a special U.S./Cuba/Mexico/Latin America/North America conference Aug. 17-19 in Tijuana, Mexico, which is next door to San Diego....

The Coalition to March on Wall Street South announced a major victory on May 29. The city of Charlotte granted conditional approval for permits for the Sept. 2 March on Wall Street South — after more than eight months of march and parks permit requests, a national petition campaign and threats of legal action. The march will take place one day prior to the Democratic National Convention....

he capitalist government and the big business media in the U.S. have firmly and vociferously taken sides against Bo Xilai and any manifestation of leftist policy in China. These same media and government have also demanded economic and political concessions from the Chinese government....

The Chinese government has responded to accusations by the U.S. government and media criticizing that rapidly developing country for purported violations of human rights. On May 25, it issued a very detailed report called “The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2011.”...

The Democratic National Convention is being held in Charlotte, North
Carolina during the first week in September. Charlotte has become
known as the "Wall Street of the South" because it
is home of Bank of America's world headquarters; Wells Fargo's
eastern regional headquarters; all kinds of other dirty corporations and banks, and has the second largest concentration of finance capital behind NYC. North Carolina is also the least unionized state in the
country....

The Hunger Project reports that out of a global population of 6.8 billion, 925 million people do not have sufficient food for members of their households. Moreover, 98 percent of undernourished people live in the so-called developing countries — those states that are colonies or former colonies....

Quebec students, who have been striking for three months for lower tuition and demonstrating each of the last 25 nights including May 18, have now targeted Law 78, adopted by the Quebec parliament a day earlier....

The recent G8 summit did nothing to relieve the worldwide capitalist crisis that has cost up to 80 million jobs worldwide since 2008. Nor did it help feed the hungry, stop global warming or prevent wars....

The capitalist media worldwide have given a resounding show of support for the cause of Chen Guangcheng, a sightless dissident activist and pawn of U.S. intelligence who was smuggled into the U.S. Embassy in Beijing on April 27....

he following speech was given by the late Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, on Aug. 15, 1970, on gay and women’s rights. Shelley Ettinger, a lesbian activist, wrote on her blog, “Read Red,” about Newton’s speech: “I think it's important to remember this speech because the Black liberation movement and even the Black community as a whole are so often slandered as though they're somehow more sexist and/or homophobic than other movements or other sectors of society, and here we have a great revolutionary leader speaking out just one year after the Stonewall Rebellion, far earlier than almost anyone else.” In light of President Barack Obama’s recent announcement in support of same-sex marriage, we are reprinting in its entirety Newton’s historic speech that urged revolutionary class solidarity with these oppressed groupings. ...

Larry Holmes and I have been visiting political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal for 16 years. We started visiting him when he was on death row at State Correctional Institution-Greene in Waynesburg, Pa., which is near the West Virginia border. Our trips there by car from New York City would take at least seven hours, and even longer by bus....

s Egyptians prepare for the first round of national presidential elections on May 23-24, the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has enacted a series of repressive measures. Clashes between armed militias of supporters of the Islamist political parties killed up to 20 people on May 2 outside the Ministry of Defense in the Abbassiya District of Cairo. Many believe SCAF backs the militias....

Thousands of activists plan to come to Chicago to protest the May 20 summit of the so-called North Atlantic Treaty Organization. But this U.S.-dominated gang of warmakers and enforcers for the banks will not be the only international organization meeting in Chicago that weekend....

The capitalist media worldwide have given a resounding show of support for the cause of Chen Guangcheng, a sightless dissident activist and pawn of U.S. intelligence who was smuggled into the U.S. Embassy in Beijing on April 27....

April 27 marked the 40th anniversary of the passing of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the founder of modern-day Ghana and a leading theoretician of the post-World War II national liberation movement for unity and socialism. Nkrumah’s legacy is reflected in the ongoing efforts of the peoples of Africa and the world who seek genuine freedom from colonialism, neocolonialism and imperialism....

Over the last several months, a grouping within the Occupy Wall Street movement has met hundreds of times to discuss getting involved with May Day. The discussions and deliberations in these meetings exemplify how much the events that erupted on Wall Street last September signify that a movement has been born in this country....

A broad array of immigrant rights groups, day laborers, grassroots unionists, street vendors, community organizations and some of the city’s most important labor unions have joined the youthful Occupy Wall Street movement in calling on everyone to be in Union Square on May Day....

The Coalition to Protest at the Democratic National Convention held its national organizing conference April 14 in Charlotte to discuss action plans. Activists from throughout North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Colorado, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Detroit, Atlanta, New York City and Philadelphia discussed and adopted action plans for the first week in September....

The campaign in China to discredit Bo Xilai has reached a new crescendo. Every newspaper, television and radio station in the country has carried official statements and editorials attacking Bo and repeating the charge that he is under investigation for unspecified “serious disciplinary violations.” ...

The campaign of vilification to destroy Bo Xilai is an all-out attempt by the top leadership of the Communist Party of China to put up a smokescreen concealing a right-left political struggle over the deepening economic and political penetration of capitalism at the summits of Chinese society....

It is now world news that Bo Xilai, a high-ranking member of the 25-member Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party, has been removed from his key post as Party Secretary of the important Chongqing branch of the CCP....

On August 27, 2012, while the Republican National Convention selects a candidate for president, we will be marching in the streets of Tampa, Florida demanding jobs, healthcare, education, equality and peace. We will let the entire world know, "We have had enough of the endless attacks on the rights of working people and our standard of living!" We will defend Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. We will defend ourselves against union busting. We will defend our children's right to an affordable, quality education. We want money spent on human needs, not on wars overseas and corporate greed....

The ouster of Bo Xilai as Communist Party Secretary of Chongqing comes at a juncture of intensifying contradictions, pressures and antagonisms in China. They reflect three decades of a steadily advancing encroachment of the capitalist mode of production and a dangerous erosion of the socialist framework established by the great Chinese Revolution of 1949....

It is with great sadness that we announce that peace and justice activist Ed
Lewinson, passed away on April 10 at his home in South Orange, NJ. Sara
Flounders who visited Ed at St Barnabus Hospital several days before he died
said that Ed was alert, interested in the struggle and following the news....

A 24-hour general strike, involving more than 80 percent of the workforce on a countrywide level, stopped large sections of the economy in Spain on March 29. The leaders of the two major union confederations that called the strike, the UGT and the CCOO, provided the numbers. ...

Picture the Homeless was "informed" by the NY Post on Friday, March 30, that The Post had obtained a leaked letter from the New York City Council directing the Department of Housing Preservation and Development to freeze PTH funding in the wake of a misleading and racially-charged article the Post ran last Sunday. Picture the Homeless has not received any letter or other communication from the City Council regarding this matter, though HPD officials contacted PTH on Thursday and directed PTH to turn over certain business records....

Monica Moorehead, a March 31st organizer, states, “Sybrina Fulton, the mother of Trayvon Martin, has told the world that her son is everybody's son. It is in this spirit that our coalition encourages all mothers, grandmothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, cousins, nieces, girlfriends and spouses of all ages, nationalities, gender expressions and sexual preferences to attend along with
men.”...

As contradictions mount in the global capitalist economy, they are reflected
in China. The factional struggle in the Chinese leadership can only be
understood as a struggle over which way to go forward and how to contain and
resolve the mounting economic and social contradictions arising out of
capitalist development....

The People’s Power tour was launched in New York on March 11. The tour
seeks to bring working, poor and oppressed people into a nationwide discussion
to help develop a unifying fightback program of action. Its literature points
to the life-and-death social issues that are intensified by the current global
capitalist economic crisis, such as “unemployment, low wages,
foreclosures, police and ICE terror, racist incarcerations, hunger and
homelessness.”...

While the stock markets in the United States and Europe have recovered — a bit — and the Greek workers have not had a general strike and massive protests for a few weeks, the struggle is far from over....

The Occupy Wall Street movement has made the inequality in capitalist society an issue that has put the rich on the defensive, at least in public. The growth of inequality in the last 30 years, and especially in the last decade, has been talked about for years in many quarters by economic analysts and even some politicians. But before the Occupy Wall Street movement raised the slogan of the 1% versus the 99%, this condition went entirely unchallenged and was merely observed as an inevitable, undesirable (unless you were part of the 1%) fact of life....

Demonstrators chanted, “Tear down Jailhouses! Build up School Houses!” outside Heery International Inc.’s Philadelphia office as part of a national call from Occupy Oakland to Occupy for Prisoners on Feb. 20....

One of the speakers at the opening meeting of the People’s Power Tour at Judson Memorial Church here on March 11 was retired postal worker and union organizer Eleanor Bailey, who has been putting in her time and enthusiasm organizing for a demonstration on March 17 to stop Post Office closings. Bailey began working at the P.O. just when both African Americans and women were flooding into the system, and her trade union activism represented the shift in the demographics of P.O. workers. Her talk, which we paraphrase here, gives a special perspective to the current struggle....

Displaying the mighty power of workers and the poor in Wisconsin and beyond, more than 60,000 protesters flooded the State Capitol grounds for a people’s march and rally on March 10. Refusing to be beaten down by union busting and austerity imposed by Gov. Scott Walker and his 1% bosses, the rainbow of protesters made clear that the people’s uprising in Wisconsin is in full fightback motion. March 10 was the one-year anniversary of when the state Legislature illegally rammed through, and Walker signed, the union-busting bill attacking public sector workers....

Outraged by cuts in funding and the tripling of tuition at community colleges and state universities, students, faculty and other educators held protests throughout California on March 1. The local actions culminated four days later in a statewide demonstration in Sacramento and a brief sit-in, led by Occupy for Education forces, in the Capitol rotunda....

On Dec. 5, 2008, workers at a Chicago factory made history. When the Republic Windows and Doors management told them, with no advance notice, that they were out of a job and had lost their health benefits, 260 members of United Electrical Workers Local 1110 occupied the plant....

Poet, essayist, editor, teacher, radio host, political activist and union
organizer, Louis Reyes Rivera willingly served as a bridge between African- and
Latino/a-American communities. No wonder his unexpected death on March 2 in
Brooklyn, N.Y., initiated a crescendo of accolades and reminiscences from those
communities as well as many cultural and activist groups....

On that day we will say that we are all Mumia, we are all immigrants, we are all prisoners, we are all Bradley Manning, we are all poor, we are all Palestinian, we are all Troy Davis, we are all political prisoners, we are all occupiers!!! ...

Encourage a nationwide discussion on developing a PEOPLES POWER program demanding jobs, housing and education, an end to all social inequalities including racism, sexism and LGBTQ oppression, the massive deportations and imperialist war. Let's target the root of these ills—the capitalist system—and the need to end this brutal system of exploitation;...

Under capitalism — a system that puts profits before human needs — genuine support needed for developing one’s talent is generally not made available, much less encouraged. Luck, along with having influential connections, plays a central role in many instances on whether the individuals become famous or not. What usually happens is that many talented people are left to figure out on their own how best to display their creativity to others as opposed to hoping to be “discovered.”...

Workers in some factories and students in the universities in Egypt held strikes on Feb. 11, one year after the revolution that forced President Hosni Mubarak out of office and shook the world. A week earlier massive protests held the Egyptian regime and the police responsible for the deaths of more than 70 people at a soccer match....

A settlement has been trumpeted between the federal government and 49 state
attorneys general with Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo
and Ally Financial “to address mortgage loan servicing and foreclosure
abuses.” (Department of Justice, Feb. 9) While acknowledging the massive
fraud perpetrated by these institutions in carrying out foreclosures, the
agreement provides minimal compensation for the hundreds of thousands of
families who have lost their homes....

A fire that began late in the evening on Feb. 14 burned 382 prisoners to death at the Comayagua Prison Farm in Honduras. Some clutched the bars of their cells while others drowned in the water tanks in an attempt to escape the flames. According to Berta Oliva of the prisoner relative organization Cofadeh (Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared in Honduras), some were shot to death before they burned. ...

For the big-business media like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and CNN television, the big news from Greece involves what is going to happen to Greek bonds, the euro, the European economy and the world economy. For these media and their owners, the hundreds of billions, even trillions of dollars at stake explain this emphasis....

When the New York Times publishes an op-ed piece stating that Honduras is
“descending deeper into a human rights and security abyss” and adds
that this is “in good part the State Department’s making,”
something is changing. (Jan. 26)...

Dr. Huey Percy Newton, the co-founder of the Black Panther Party for
Self-Defense, was born in Monroe, La., on Feb. 17, 1942, the youngest of seven
children born to Walter Newton and Armelia Johnson....

Some 2,000-plus Occupy Oakland participants were met with heavy police
violence and hundreds of arrests on Jan. 28 as they marched on the long-vacant
Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center. The group had been planning the building
occupation for several months....

Long-time Tunisian ruler President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled his country
on Jan 14, 2011, for the monarchy of Saudi Arabia, where he has been granted
political refuge. The uprising that began in Tunisia 14 months ago was the
first in a series of events that have reshaped the debate and struggle in much
of Africa and the Middle East....

The Occupy movement has made it very clear that hundreds of thousands of
people across the United States, from big cities on both coasts to smaller ones
in the midlands and hundreds of towns and rural areas in between, are
distressed and angry enough at the present situation to march in the rain and
snow, occupy banks, sleep on the ground, attend countless meetings, defy hordes
of cops before getting arrested, and above all make their voices heard....

n response to brutal police repression in Oakland this evening (including tear-gas, "flash" grenades, projectiles, mass arrests, and a pregnant woman hit in the belly by a policeman's baton) direct action working groups from at least Occupy Wall St, Occupy Boston, and Occupy Philly, have stayed up late to craft a massive coordinated response. Here are the initial results:...

On August 27, 2012, while the Republican National Convention selects a
candidate for president, we will be marching in the streets of Tampa, Florida
demanding jobs, healthcare, education, equality and peace. We will let the
entire world know, “We have had enough of the endless attacks on the
rights of working people and our standard of living!” We will defend
Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. We will defend ourselves against union
busting. We will defend our children's right to an affordable, quality
education. We want money spent on human needs, not on wars overseas and
corporate greed....

When the Democratic National Convention meets in Charlotte, N.C., in
September, there will be thousands of people from across the country in the
streets to raise demands for jobs and justice on the world stage....

Thousands of demonstrators came out Jan. 20 to “Occupy Wall Street
West” to mark the second anniversary of the Supreme Court Citizens United
decision. This ruling called anonymous campaign contributions “free
speech” and claimed corporations were “people,” thus
increasing the already overwhelming power of the rich over politicians....

Feb 11th, 2011, the whole world witnessed millions of Egyptian protesters marching in the streets of Egypt and protesting in Tahrir Square, demanding their basic human rights: dignity, freedom, and social justice. After decades of patience and suffering, Egyptians finally spoke out loudly and peacefully demanding the fall of a police-based authoritarian regime, the end of Mubarak’s dictatorship, and the establishment of a civilian, democratic state. Under the maximal pressure exerted by Egyptians, Mubarak was toppled. The Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) took charge in leading the country through the transitional stage. At that time, SCAF members and military personnel were regarded as heroes...

As many people as possible should go to 100 Centre St. tomorrow starting at 11 a.m. in solidarity with Larry Holmes, Caleb Maupin, Tony Murphy, Gavrielle Gemma, Toni Arenstein and Tim Barker following their arrests during the Occupy 4 Jobs protest today. The Court Clerk's office, located on the 1st floor, will have a docket list of cases. Please look for these names on the list. We are still unaware of the charges as of tonight. Take the #4, 5 or 6 trains to City Hall...

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would have been 83 years old on Jan. 15.
In honor of this iconic civil rights, anti-war and social justice activist, the
federal government and other public agencies close every year on the Monday
following his birthday. King was martyred in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4,
1968....

In the spirit of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., on Monday, Jan. 16, at 1
p.m., hundreds of people -- including those who have exhausted unemployment
benefits, as well as students, labor and community activists -- will gather in
Union Square NYC to commence an Occupation for Jobs....

In their quest for dignity, Freedom, Justice, and
Democracy, Egyptian Americans & Egyptian Solidarity
Groups are calling upon people from all nations, races, colors, and
religions as well as human rights and peace groups and organizations to join
Egyptians abroad in their rallies to support the Egyptian revolution....

Some 10,000 women of all classes and walks of life took to the streets of
Cairo on Dec. 20 to protest the military’s misogynistic, violent assaults
on Egyptian women. Many demanded that the military step down immediately....

The “libertarian” movement has never been friendly to the 99%.
Its members are not apologetic about wanting to abolish all social programs
that aid the people, from Medicaid to food stamps. They want to shut down every
government department that in any way limits the excesses of the 1%. These
include the Departments of Labor, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services,
among others....

International Longshore and Warehouse Union rank-and-file
members and the Occupy movements in Longview, Wash.; Portland, Ore.; Seattle;
Oakland, Calif.; Los Angeles and other West Coast cities are organizing to
blockade a grain ship arriving in Longview sometime in January. This ship is
supposed to be loaded by a non-ILWU crew with cargo from the new EGT export
terminal. The date won’t be known until three to four days in
advance....

ILWU rank and file, Occupies in Longview, Portland, Seattle, Oakland, LA and
other West Coast Occupies are organizing to blockade a grain ship coming to
Longview. This ship is intended to load scab cargo from the EGT terminal. The
date won't be known until 3-4 days in advance, but is anticipated to be
sometime in January....

The Labor Outreach Committee (LOC) of Occupy Wall Street is appealing
for your support for the nurses. Their struggle embodies many of the
core issues motivating the Occupy movement. They are up against
hospital CEOs who make millions in salaries, yet demand givebacks in
healthcare at a time when, like the rest of the 99%, nurses are
struggling with soaring living expenses....

Dangerous provisions inserted into the National Defense Authorization Act for 2012 (NDAA-2012) have created great alarm among civil liberties organizations, Muslim organizations, groups that defend anti-war activists and many activists of the Occupy Wall Street movement who have recently been targeted across the country....

The Occupy 4 Jobs network is celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day in New
York City with a direct action to demand jobs. The Jan. 16 event will begin at
1 p.m. at Union Square. “The MLK holiday is the perfect day to do this,” said Larry Holmes, a leading organizer of the Bail Out the People Movement, one of the founders of Occupy 4 Jobs. “What most people don’t know is that in the last months of his life, King was devoted to opening a struggle for everyone to have a decent-paying job.” In early 1968, before his April 4th assassination, King announced the Poor
People’s Campaign, which was to culminate in a March on Washington
demanding a $12 billion Economic Bill of Rights. The demands of the campaign
were jobs, income and housing. The Economic Bill of Rights guaranteed
employment to all and an annual income to those unable to work....

The police campaign to wipe out the Occupy Wall Street movement across the
country should drive home a truth that has long been experienced by oppressed
communities, workers on strike, fighters for civil rights, immigrant workers
and many others. The regime of capitalist democracy in the United States has a
violently repressive character — side-by-side with its controlled
“democratic” institutions....

Today, Occupy activists from Vancouver, Canada, to San
Diego, Calif., disrupted and shut down West Coast ports in solidarity with port
workers. Specifically, they embraced the port truckers’ struggle for
union recognition and efforts by the International Longshore Workers Union to
fight union-busting in Longview, Wash. They were also responding to federally
coordinated attacks on the Occupy movement across the country. Once again, the largest protests were in Oakland, Calif. Despite continuous and well-publicized attempts by Oakland city officials and the Port of Oakland to discredit the port shutdown campaign, the all-day protest was massive. It started at 5 a.m. at the West Oakland Bay Area Rapid Transit station, in the shadow of the Port of Oakland....

Battle lines have formed as the West Coast Occupy movements, from San Diego to Alaska, flex their collective muscle against the federally coordinated, brutal attacks targeting the Occupy movements across the country. They are organizing for blockades of West Coast ports on Dec. 12 in San Diego; Los Angeles/Long Beach; Port Hueneme, CA (central coast); Oakland; Portland, Ore.; Seattle; Tacoma, Wash.; and possibly more. Solidarity actions have been called by OWS in New York and by Occupy movements inland locations, as well....

More than 2 million workers walked out for 24 hours on Nov. 30 in England, Scotland and Wales in an action the union leadership called the largest in at least 30 years. Some say it was the biggest since the 1926 general strike. The strikers closed two-thirds of the schools, picked up no garbage, forced the postponement of 6,000 nonessential operations in the hospitals and did this defying weeks of anti-strike propaganda....

It is more than four years since the housing bubble burst and the world capitalist economic crisis came down upon the heads of the working class and the oppressed in August 2007. Despite all the talk of economic recovery, the plague of unemployment, underemployment, rising poverty, lower wages and general insecurity is still growing....

Battle lines have formed as the West Coast Occupy movements, from San Diego to Alaska, flex their collective muscle against the federally coordinated, brutal attacks targeting the pro-Occupy Wall Street movements across the country. They are organizing for blockades of West Coast ports on Dec. 12 in San Diego; Los Angeles/Long Beach; Port Hueneme, Calif. (central coast); Oakland; Portland, Ore.; Seattle; Tacoma, Wash.; and possibly more. Solidarity actions have been called by OWS in New York and inland locations, as well....

"Now that it is clear that Mumia should never have been on death row in the first place, justice will not be served by relegating him to prison for the rest of his life"yet another form of death sentence. Based on even a minimal following of international human rights standards, Mumia must now be released. I therefore join the call, and ask others to follow, asking District Attorney Seth Williams to rise to the challenge of reconciliation, human rights, and justice: drop this case now, and allow Mumia Abu-Jamal to be immediately released, with full time served."...

We woke up this morning to the news that the cops had finally shut down Occupy Philly. The eviction deadline had been announced for Sunday, Nov. 25, at 5 p.m., but nothing happened until around 1 a.m. Wednesday. By then the 322 tents had dwindled to less than 100, with maybe 75 people at the General Assembly Tuesday night. The homeless population had been moved to another location Sunday afternoon....

When New York City mayor, Michael Bloomberg, effectively ended the Occupy
Wall Street encampment at Zuccotti Park on Nov. 15, many wondered if the
movement had been weakened. Just two days later, several actions took place on the “Historic Day of Action for the 99 Percent.” Thousands of New Yorkers rallied at the Stock Exchange. Later that day, thousands more occupied a building near the New School. That afternoon, more than 32,000 people marched from Foley Square across the Brooklyn Bridge. It is clear that regardless of location, the Occupy movement is alive and well. OWS has not only survived, it has given birth to a new movement and is encouraging more people to get out on the streets....

Organizing is under way for a coordinated mass blockade of West Coast ports
on Monday, Dec. 12, targeting “Wall Street on the waterfront”
— the major companies owned and controlled by “the 1 percent”
ruling elite....

Friends do not beat up on other friends. Friends do not open cans of pepper
spray into the faces and throats of their friends. Friends do not trample each
other purposely on horseback. Friends do not stab one another. Friends do not
arrest one another. Friends do not bring one another to court — or
threaten to imprison one another. Friends do not purposely injure each other so
severely that it leads to hospitalization....

More than 3 million workers in Portugal walked off the job on Nov. 24 to
protest austerity measures and the takeover of their country’s economy by
the “Troika” — the European Union, the European Central Bank
and the International Monetary Fund. This has been done with the collusion of
the big Portuguese capitalists and their political parties....

Dec. 17 marks the anniversary of a year of uprisings, strikes, government
resignations and regime change on the African continent. A resource-rich and
strategically located geopolitical region, Africa has experienced numerous mass
demonstrations, general strikes, rebellions and full-scale military assaults as
part of a heightening global class struggle for control of the
continent’s economic and political future....

“A social movement strong enough to force change.” That
statement could describe the Occupy Wall Street movement, but it refers to the
struggle of Mexican electrical workers and Mexican miners in Cananea, Sonora.
Leaders from these struggles will open the 8th U.S./Cuba/Mexico/Latin America
Labor Conference on Dec. 2 in Tijuana, Mexico....

The Western-orchestrated military effort to defeat the Islamic resistance
group Al-Shabaab in Somalia is bogged down, despite the deployment of the most
modern weapons against this people’s movement....

If the mayor of New York City thought that he, his judge and his shock
troops could put a halt to the Occupy Wall Street movement by raiding Zuccotti
Park in the early hours of Nov. 15, he was wrong....

The masses have opened a new chapter in the Egyptian
revolution. They have stood strong in Tahrir Square for nearly four days
against bullets and gas demanding that the military regime, which succeeded
President Hosni Mubarak last Feb. 12, step down....

The Occupy Wall Street movement at Zuccotti Park in New York City heard the
powerful voices of women activists, the majority of them immigrants from Latin
America, at a rally organized Nov. 20 by a broad coalition led by Women Workers
for Peace and La Peña del Bronx....

The eyes of the world were on the city of Oakland and the massive people’s march to the nation’s fifth-largest container port on Nov. 2 for the General Strike and Day of Mass Action called by Occupy Oakland. Not only has the Occupy movement gone global, Occupy Oakland has become the focal point of the movement. In fact, on Oct. 28, Egyptian pro-democracy protesters marched from Tahrir Square to the U.S. Embassy in support of Occupy Oakland and against police brutality witnessed in Oakland on Oct. 25, and commonly experienced in Egypt....

Nov. 15 — As the political character of Occupy Wall Street has grown sharper, with its movement increasingly targeting foreclosures and union-busting, the ruling class made a decision: Cut off the movement at the head. After Occupy encampments in Portland, Denver, and Oakland were shut down, New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered the New York Police Department to clear out Zuccotti Park — the site of Occupy Wall Street, which since Sept. 17 has spawned a worldwide movement against the ravages of capitalism. Police in riot gear went into Zuccotti Park at 1 a.m. on Nov. 15 and violently evicted protesters, with about 70 arrested at last count. The goal of Billionaire Bloomberg and his cohorts on Wall Street remains the same: to decapitate the movement. As protesters reentered the square, they did so under heavy police presence, with onerous rules such as no tents, sleeping bags, backpacks and so on. People with medical equipment were denied access....

On Tuesday, November 15 thousands of people were in the streets again to
respond to the brutal, coordinated police attack on the center of the Occupy
Wall Street movement - Zuccotti Park – at 1 am Tuesday morning. The mass
arrests and destruction came without warning or any provocation. When word went out of the police attack immediately supporters descended on the Wall Street
area of Manhattan. At Zuccotti Park, activists resisted the police destruction and theft of their personal belongings. There were beatings and 200 mass arrests.The media was illegally barred from the area during the police assault. Refusing to be intimidated, the movement quickly regrouped and mobilized on
Tuesday. Activist lawyers rushed into court for a temporary restraining order.
The city immediately appealed the order and not surprisingly the courts sided
with billionaire Bloomberg. The police and courts, just like the Pentagon,
defend the interests of the 1%. ...

Alfonso Cano, leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia-People’s Army (FARC-EP) was killed in combat on Nov. 4 by the
Colombian Army in that country’s southwest region of Cauca. For several
hours that day, dozens of helicopters and planes surrounded this rural area,
the home of peasant families, and then they started bombing, hitting the place
where the FARC leader was....

A People’s Assembly held Nov. 5 at Hostos Community College in the South Bronx launched an exciting fightback program for jobs, against racism and for the rights of workers and poor people to unions, food, healthcare, and public education....

From capitalist media pundits to the Occupy Wall Street encampments
struggling to hold public space in countless cities and towns across the U.S.,
this question is bubbling underneath the daily actions and police
repression....

A public memorial and cultural tribute was held for Consuela Lee — an
African-American jazz pianist, composer, arranger and teacher — at the
historic Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem in New York City on Oct. 29. Lee
passed away from a long illness associated with Alzheimer’s disease at
the age of 83 on Dec. 26, 2009, in Atlanta....

The scene was a perfect storm of organized chaos. Here
were the young and old, students and workers, immigrants and oppressed, all
addressing the failures of capitalism’s current worldwide crisis,
outlining the destructive forces of global banking systems and highlighting the
lack of communal values in a place that loves to cry patriotism....

On Tuesday, Oct. 25, a pre-dawn police raid tore up and destroyed the Occupy
Oakland camp. It was a war zone. More than 500 police from at least 12
jurisdictions took part in the paramilitary operation, arresting more than 130
by day’s end, beating many and sending one Iraqi war vet to the hospital
in critical condition....

Nov. 1 — Like a force of nature that astonishes everyone with its
power, Occupy Oakland has inspired bold actions by youth and workers across the
United States, electrifying the political climate and forcing city officials
and police authorities to constantly revise their plans for dealing with this
broad-based people’s movement....

On the day Verizon announced that its third-quarter profits had jumped to $1.38 billion, more than 2,000 members of the Communication Workers union, together with contingents from unions including the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Union, District Council 37; the United Auto Workers; the Teamsters union; and the Professional Staff Congress of the City University of New York held a vibrant, militant picket line in front of Verizon’s headquarters on Water Street on Oct. 21....

The chain reaction of protest occupations that has swept the United States
has already reinvigorated the struggle for equality and for participation in
decisions that affect the lives of the 300 million people the demonstrators
call the 99 percent....

The People’s Assembly at Hostos College in the Bronx, N.Y., scheduled
for Saturday, Nov. 5, has the ingredients for a unifying moment, bringing
workers’ and communities’ struggles together with the mushrooming Occupy Wall Street movement. Outreach in the Bronx has focused on postal workers’ unions, parents’ associations and tenants’ groups. People are excited to know they will be encouraged to speak up for themselves as well as hear from others with the same problems....

Early Tuesday morning 900 police from a dozen police agencies in the Bay Area, along with Homeland Security, brutally cracked down on demonstrators who marched in support of Occupy Oakland. The demonstrators were marching to reestablish the Oakland occupation, which was shut down earlier in the day....

Despite all the nice words by U.S. officials in world forums about their support for “peaceful” protests, despite all the sympathy expressed by politicians, from President Barack Obama on down, regarding the dire conditions that have sparked the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, despite all the efforts by many demonstrators to show good will to the authorities, the riot police have now been called out in many cities and the crackdown has begun....

Will it develop a strong and
independent, working class-centered orientation with an understanding that
inequality based on race, religion, gender, sexual orientation and class are
realities that must be confronted as part of the process of forging real
solidarity amongst the 99%?...

The prisoner hunger strikers at California’s Pelican Bay State Prison
called off their protest action on Oct. 13. Two days later, prisoners at
Calipatria State Prison decided to “temporarily” end their hunger
strike....

Almost every major national labor union — except in the construction
trades — and the AFL-CIO have endorsed Occupy Wall Street. But more
important is that in major cities they have offered significant organizational,
financial and political support to this movement....

Occupy Boston and the United National Antiwar Committee
rocked the city’s business district as 5,000 protesters marched on Oct.
15 with cries of “Whose streets? Our streets!” A contingent from
Steelworkers Local 8751 representing Boston school bus drivers led the march
from a union sound truck festooned with placards declaring “Wall Street =
War Street.” The truck was ringed by a steadfast security contingent from
Vets for Peace/Smedley Butler Brigade....

It was called as a global Day of Rage that also focused on the 10th
anniversary of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. This
convergence of events on Oct. 15 put tens of thousands of people in motion here
in New York and in other cities across the country, reinforcing their anger at
imperialist wars....

This Friday evening, Oct. 21, together with Occupy Wall Street, Verizon and Verizon Wireless workers will march to protest Verizon corporate greed. Please join us.
We will assemble at 140 West Street between 4 and 5 p.m., march east on Barclay Street and then down Broadway. We should arrive at Liberty Plaza around 5:30 p.m. and move on towards the Verizon Wireless store at about 6 p.m....

These are hard times. There doesn’t appear to be any respite coming soon. The political atmosphere has shifted in response to the greatest economic calamity since the Great Depression. This crisis, because of how the changes in technology, communication and production have made the world smaller, is global in its impact....

Just the very name — Occupy Wall Street! — has struck a chord with millions of people across the United States who are suffering from the often capricious devastation wreaked by the capitalist crisis, which has meant a job destroyed here, a family evicted there, until whole communities are left in tatters....

In international financial centers, big cities and small towns, protests swept through Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia, Australasia, Canada and the U.S. Demonstrators in the hundreds of thousands protested corporate avarice, growing poverty, joblessness and austerity cutbacks....

The International Women’s Alliance (IWA) supports the ‘Occupy Wall Street’
actions and calls on women’s organizations, networks, and alliances
worldwide to join and express their solidarity especially on the Global Day
of Action on October 15....

ABRACADABRA is not a play. It is an act of Justice and Life, written mainly by children who share the dream of freedom . A teacher invites her students to walk the road to the essences, through five very true stories of
heroism and virtue....

The people are rising up. The anti-corporation sentiments that galvanized the Occupy Wall Streetprotest in New York City are spreading across the U.S. and the world. The list of cities either staging or planning occupations increases by the hour....

On Oct. 7 a Haitian community group will march from Brooklyn across the Brooklyn Bridge and join the Occupy Wall Street encampment at Liberty Plaza in downtown Manhattan’s financial district. On Oct. 5 Columbia University students plan to walk out of classes and join a giant union march to the same site. A People of Color working group is now part of the encampment and meets regularly....

The arrest of over 700 people on Saturday, Oct 1 on the Brooklyn Bridge by the New York City Police Department is an outrage and an injustice. Numerous videos clearly show top NYPD police officials actually leading the demonstration on to the roadway of the bridge, not the pedestrian walkway. Then they blocked further movement and started arresting hundreds of activists. This is entrapment....

Events of the past week have made it easy to see who is considered a
criminal under the for-profit system known as capitalism. Events of the past week have made it easy to see who is considered a criminal under the for-profit system known as capitalism. What happened to the Wall Street gamblers who caused the foreclosure epidemic, forcing people out of their homes and crashing the economy? The government bailed them out — of course. Yet, how were activists with the Occupy Wall Street movement treated as they marched on Sept. 24 through New York streets to protest war, unemployment and racism? They were tackled, punched, choked, tear-gassed, pepper-sprayed and arrested by the police....

During an interview with WOR radio on Sept. 16, New York City’s
billionaire mayor, Michael Bloomberg, stated that the conditions of high
employment in the U.S. could lead to social unrest on a par with what has
occurred throughout parts of North Africa, the Middle East, Britain, Spain,
Greece and elsewhere. His specific comment was, “You have a lot of kids
graduating college can’t find jobs. That’s what happened in Cairo.
That’s what happened in Madrid. You don’t want those kinds of riots here.”...

Stop-and-frisk, harassment, marijuana busts – all directed
disproportionately at African American and Latino youth – is a constant
feature in neighborhoods where unemployment is the highest. And when people come out to demand jobs and justice, or to protest the racist execution of Troy Davis, they get kicked, tripped, punched and pepper-sprayed....

In the wake of the outrageous murder of Troy Davis, on Saturday the NYPD
violently attacked the Occupy Wall Street protesters for doing nothing but
taking to the streets against racism, unemployment and bank bailouts. The
latest word is they will not be released until tomorrow....

“Occupy Wall Street” was a demonstration rooted in tweets,
Facebook messages, and email exchanges. There was no call to kick it off, no
list of endorsers, and no office with a director and staff. There were lists of
Web pages, some of which had links to files to make leaflets, and certainly
meetings occurred where issues and tactics were considered....

The vast majority of the people in the U.S. depend on wages to get by. Only
7 percent of those who work full-time are self-employed. Farmers, for example,
who a century ago made up almost half the population, now account for less than
1 percent. Vastly more people work for large corporations or retail chains than
have their own businesses....

President Barack Obama, facing formidable challenges to his re-election bid in 2012 as well as the potential further erosion of the Democratic Party base in the Senate and House of Representatives, unveiled the American Jobs Act during a special address to a joint session of Congress on Sept. 8. On Sept. 12 he announced the submission of a $447 billion proposal to Congress that is purportedly designed to create jobs amid the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s....

Some 15,000 children and thousands more adults will be cut off cash
assistance in Michigan on Oct. 1 due to draconian legislation adopted in the
state in recent months. These cuts were passed by the conservative state
Legislature and signed into law by Republican Gov. Rick Snyder....

After nearly seven months of war against the North African state of Libya,
the combined forces of NATO and its National Transitional Council
“rebel” units are tightening their noose around the areas of the
country where armed resistance has prevented the counterrevolution from taking
over. Those millions of Libyans who remain loyal to the government and are
opposing the efforts to loot the national wealth of this oil-producing nation
are being pressured to lay down their arms and surrender....

“Food is a right” is not just a slogan. In 1999 the United
Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights determined that food
is actually a human right. But the price of food has doubled worldwide since
2000, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization....

Dozens of demonstrators gathered in front of the Jacob K. Javits Federal
Office Building here on Aug. 5 to protest cuts of $127 billion to food stamps
and the Women, Infants and Children program. Congress mandated the cuts in
April, to extend from 2012 to 2021....

Extreme right-wing, racist forces — who last year whipped up a climate of racism against the Islamic Prayer Center at 51 Park Place — are planning to use the tenth anniversary of September 11 for another anti-Muslim hatefest....

New York City Mayor Bloomberg has announced that in the event of a hurricane, that he will not evacuate prisoners at Rikers’ Island, claiming instead to have a “contingency plan” in place. The experience of prisoners in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina shows that city authorities will abandon the basic rights of prisoners in the face of disaster....

On August 20, the African community of the world will register our condemnation of and resistance to the wars being made against our people and our freedom everywhere.We will oppose the heinous bombing of Libya and the violent attempt to overthrow that government....

We are writing to you on an urgent matter. As you know, the streets of
London and other British cities erupted in rebellion earlier this week,
following the police killing of a young Black man and father of three, Mark
Duggan, in the Tottenham area on August 4....

Wednesday's (Aug. 10) first Planning Meeting of the Emergency Mobilization Against
Racism, War and Anti-Muslem Bigotry to counter the racist, right-wing forces on
Sunday, September 11 was a tremendous step forward. We discussed plans for a
Rally, March and Cultural Exhibition....

In the largest U.S. strike in four years, 45,000 union members took to the picket lines from Massachusetts to Virginia on Aug. 7 after their contract with Verizon Communications expired. The courageous strikers, who belong to the Communication Workers union and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, refuse to go back to work until they have a decent contract....

In the past year the British government has announced and implemented huge cuts in education and social service programs in the face of growing unemployment and poverty. Now Black and working-class youth are responding with direct action and mass rebellion.

Extreme right-wing, racist forces, who last year whipped up a climate of hate against the Islamic Prayer Center at 51 Park Place, have announced ugly new plans for this year -- the 10th anniversary of 9/11 -- at the same location near the World Trade Center site. This is a very dangerous threat. Anders Breivik, the racist, right-wing Norwegian responsible for the recent mass murder of 77 mostly young people in Norway, has quoted extensively from the writings of Pamela Geller of Stop Islamization of America and Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch. These are the two organizations opposing the Islamic Prayer Space at 51 Park Place....

For 18 days the people of Egypt gathered in the streets in the millions and brought down the 30-year reign of U.S. client Hosni Mubarak. This January 25 Revolution, named for its first day of protest, was led by youth and students....

June 18 — The Egyptian Socialist Party was founded here today before a packed auditorium of more than 400 Egyptians and international guests. What made such an assembly possible was the enormous mass revolution of last Jan. 25 that removed the U.S.-backed dictator Hosni Mubarak and made the name “Tahrir Square” an inspiration for popular revolt worldwide....

More than 85 percent of Egypt’s poor live in rural areas. Like all
Egyptians, they are participating in the protests held throughout the country,
and are expecting that a new Egyptian government will meet their urgent
needs....

In addition to the mass protests in Egypt, another arena for demanding
rights and fighting corruption has been Egypt’s independent trade union
movement. This movement expressed its solidarity with the demonstrators, and
added its clout to the struggle to bring down Hosni Mubarak five months
ago....

Thousands of angry Egyptians took to the streets of Cairo and Alexandria at
the end of June, battling the Central Security forces for hours before
successfully pushing the riot police back. These were the most intense clashes
in five months, since Egypt’s 18-day revolution in January that ousted
U.S.-client Hosni Mubarak....

The desperate situation of the Haitian people has given rise to political
tensions in the country’s Parliament and anger among the people against
the U.S.-backed regime. The only effective aid for combating the cholera
epidemic has come from socialist Cuba....

The resolution of the debt-ceiling crisis shows the growing strength of the
right wing in capitalist politics and the bankruptcy of President Barack Obama
and the Democratic Party leadership. It also guarantees that the economic
crisis of the workers and the people in general will get worse at a time when
capitalism is sliding toward a new crisis....

The debt ceiling battle is being fought by representatives of the rich
with no input whatsoever by the people. We're being asked to sit on the
sidelines while the Democrats and Republicans duke it out. Possibly we can root
for one side or another....

The International Women’s Assembly successfully held its First General
Assembly on July 5 and 6 in Quezon City, Philippines, under the theme
“Advance the Global Anti-imperialist Women’s Movement! Strengthen
the International Women’s Alliance!”...

Leaders of the hunger strike in the Security Housing Unit at
California’s Pelican Bay State Prison accepted an offer July 20 from the
California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation and have ended their
weeks-long action. Members of the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity coalition
confirmed reports of the hunger strike’s end after speaking with some of
the prisoners involved. ...

Whether or not a deal is reached in Washington on how to raise the debt
ceiling and avoid a government default, the workers and the oppressed have no
independent voice in the debate. The process gives them no choice but to accept
the result of venomous political warfare in the capitalist establishment....

On June 2 hotel housekeepers who are members of UNITE HERE launched a
coordinated eight-city speak-out “to break the silence on the dangers of
their jobs.” The workers stated that they were “inspired by the
courageous stand taken by the housekeepers in New York against some of the most
powerful men in the world.” ...

Even the most rabid budget cutters on Wall Street are now pushing for an increase in the debt ceiling. The bankers and bosses were happy to see the Republican extreme right wing play chicken with default in order to get cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. They have already gotten President Barack Obama to agree to put cutting Social Security and other entitlements on the bargaining table....

Facundo Cabral, the well-known Argentinean songwriter, died July 9, the
victim of a horrendous shooting in Guatemala on his way to the airport. He was
74 years old and had just finished a concert in that country’s capital
before heading to Nicaragua where he was planning to end his concert tour. He
was suffering from cancer and was about to go for treatment....

Urgent bulletin: On July 13 it is reported by the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity coalition that 200 of the Pelican Bay hunger strikers are experiencing life-threatening health conditions according to an urgent update received by the coalition from medical personnel at the prison. The California Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation continues to refuse to negotiate. It is urged that phone calls be made to the following authorities immediately, demanding they enter into negotiations before they have (more) deaths on their hands:...

Just as the right of public sector workers to collective bargaining has been attacked this year in state legislatures from New Hampshire to California, so too have there been widespread legislative attacks on women’s right to legal, safe, accessible abortion....

The hotel housekeeper who accused then-head of the International Monetary Fund Dominique Strauss-Kahn of raping her is fighting back after a media barrage meant to defame her character and undermine her credibility. This brave woman has filed a libel suit against the New York Post for a series of articles in which the paper, in vulgar and demeaning terms, openly claimed she was a prostitute....

At first glance it would seem that Athens, Ohio, and Athens, Greece, are worlds apart. Not only does language separate them, but more than 5,100 miles of land and ocean stand between them. The only thing they seem to have in common is a name....

On June 28, as the New York City Council was scheduled to vote on a pro-banker, anti-people budget deal, more than 100 residents of the “Bloombergville” encampment marched around City Hall. They had been sleeping on the sidewalk nearby for 16 days trying to stop Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s impending cuts....

The U.S. Supreme Court recently dealt a brutal blow to women workers employed by Wal-Mart. On June 20 the justices dismissed the Dukes v. Wal-Mart lawsuit, decreeing that these workers cannot sue their employers as a class for sex discrimination....

These cuts have nothing to do with any kind of “deficit.”
Billionaire Bloomberg made that clear Friday night when he said, “We
always have the money. They question is, do we need to spend it on this or
that? Or spend it now or later?”...

June 19 — Launched on the heels of a massive public workers’
rally on June 14, and inspired by gigantic occupations of public squares in
Egypt, Tunisia, Spain, Greece and Wisconsin, the Bloombergville encampment near
New York’s City Hall has withstood police intimidation and inclement
weather to mount a spirited and sustained protest against the current onslaught
of anti-people budget cuts in New York City and state....

Greece’s left-wing labor confederation PAME held the third general
strike of 2011 on June 15, protesting the government’s newest plans to
cut another 6.4 billion euros from the already existing austerity budget. PAME,
which marched in 67 cities, represents about half the organized workers and has
led the workers’ struggle against the Troika....

The spirit of resistance is alive across the state of Wisconsin. From the
first eruption of struggle here in February, when Gov. Scott Walker introduced
a union-busting bill, and as attacks on working and oppressed people have
broadened and sharpened, youth and students have played a decisive role,
helping to advance and build the fightback....

Some 80,000 people marched down the streets to Syntagma Square in Athens,
Greece, on June 5 on the 12th straight day of protests emulating the uprising
of youth in Spain. In Greece organized struggles over the past 18 months have
also included general strikes led by the PAME labor confederation....

Prisoners earning 23 cents an hour in U.S. federal prisons are manufacturing
high-tech electronic components for Patriot Advanced Capability 3 missiles,
launchers for TOW (Tube-launched, Optically tracked, Wire-guided) anti-tank
missiles, and other guided missile systems. A March article by journalist and
financial researcher Justin Rohrlich of World in Review is worth a closer look
at the full implications of this ominous development. ...

The steering committees of the two large coalitions that mobilized on March 24 and May 12 against the massive cuts proposed in Mayor Bloomberg’s executive budget announced plans for a unified and protracted resistance and camp-in beginning Tuesday June 14....

Hundreds of thousands of people, predominantly youth, took to the streets
throughout Yemen on May 28 to demand President Ali Abdullah Saleh leave.
Earlier, there had been heavy fighting between government forces and tribally
based militias, joined by dissident factions of the army. (Miami Herald, May
28)...

May 30 — Demonstrations and occupations against the capitalist crisis, austerity and mass unemployment continued into their third week across Spain, sending ripples across the rest of the continent as other young people and workers organized protests and encampments in solidarity with the revolt that ignited on May 15. It’s now called 15-M....

As a result of the ongoing people’s struggle in Wisconsin and worldwide support for it, a permanent injunction was issued by a Dane County judge May 26 that struck down the union-busting bill signed by Gov. Scott Walker on March 11....

Manuel Zelaya is going home. After nearly two years in forced exile, after
two years of protests and marches, after strikes in the streets of Honduras,
after the martyrdom of hundreds of members of a huge nationwide resistance,
Hondurans have won the right to bring back “Mel,” their
“Máximo Líder,” the elected General Coordinator of the
Front for the National Popular Resistance of Honduras (FNRP)....

Consider these horrific facts provided by the National Organization for
Women: Every year approximately 132,000 women report they have been violently
violated by rape or attempted rape. More than half of that number knew their
attackers. It’s estimated that two to six times that many women are
raped, but do not report it. Every year 1.2 million women are raped by their
current or former male partners, some more than once....

The sun had not dawned yet on the cold, crisp morning of May 17 in Alhambra,
a neighborhood east of Los Angeles. It was hard to believe spring had arrived
that morning when at 5 a.m. the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department
SWAT team assembled in front of Carlos Montes’ driveway and front yard.
The silence was shattered along with Montes’ door as the officers rammed
it down and then sprang into his home bearing automatic rifles....

Drawing inspiration from the fighting spirit and determination of Tahrir
Square and the peoples of Egypt, Tunisia and the Middle East, the peoples of
Spain took the struggle against capitalist austerity, mass unemployment and the
conditions of the economic crisis to a new level this past week....

Since the beginning of the people’s upsurge in Wisconsin in early
February, the students and workers have resisted in numerous mass actions. One
of the most courageous of these was a student occupation at the University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee, which ended in the early morning hours of May 7 after the
students were evicted from their occupied space by the administration and
charged with “trespassing.”...

All out on May 12 in New York City! Join in a mass march on Wall Street to
say ‘Enough!’ to service cuts, job cuts, wage cuts and other
anti-worker, anti-union, anti-poor, anti-youth attacks. Wall Street has the
money. It’s time to stop budget cuts and make the bosses and bankers pay
up! March with New Yorkers Against the Budget Cuts, CUNY Mobilization Network,
Transport Workers Union, students, youth and many others. Gather at 4 p.m. at
the Bowling Green subway stop, across from 2 Broadway....

International Workers’ Day — May Day — was honored throughout the U.S. on May 1 with marches demanding legalization for immigrants and an end to union busting and attacks on workers, including vicious anti-immigrant and anti-worker legislation enacted or under consideration in several states....

The workers’ movement in the United States took a significant step forward this May Day when labor and immigrant organizations in New York City came together after a march and closed the day by exchanging speakers under the banner “May Day Is Workers’ Day.”...

Union leaders from the center of the struggles in Wisconsin and California
spoke at a news conference April 29 in New York’s Union Square to help
build for what they hope will be a massive May Day march this year....

STAND with the North Carolina Association of Educators and the North
Carolina Defend Education Coalition who will be demonstrating on May 3 at the
North Carolina General Assembly for FULL FUNDING NOW!...

In a
show of unity, May 1st Coalition members joined with union members from LIUNA,
SEIU Local 1199, 32BJ, LACLAA and others at City Hall to announce that speakers
from the Foley Square Coalition & May 1st would be sharing speakers and
supporting each others activities. The Union Square organizers will be leaving
14th St. earlier than usual to join the Foley Square rally in a closing unity
rally....

he increased attacks on both immigrant and non-immigrant workers show the
need for the most united, militant action possible on May Day in the U.S.
May Day originated in the U.S. from the struggle of immigrants and other
workers who fought and died for the eight-hour workday in 1886 – for the
right of all workers to a decent life....

Beloved around the world to this day, Fidel stated in 1961: “This is what they cannot forgive us ... that we have made a Socialist Revolution right under the nose of the United States. ... Comrades, workers and farmers, this is the Socialist and democratic Revolution of the people, by the people and for the people. And for this Revolution ... we are willing to give our lives.”...

Mobilize! That is the way the San Francisco Labor Council is answering the Pacific Maritime Association’s attack on the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10. In a unanimous resolution, the SFLC called for mass action at the PMA’s San Francisco headquarters on April 25 and established a broad defense committee for the union and its members....

The antiwar movement is back on the streets. Thousands marched on April 9 in
New York and April 10 in San Francisco. These demonstrations represented an important step forward for the United National Antiwar Committee and the antiwar movement as a whole. The new antiwar movement needs to oppose the US foreign wars but also defend the domestic victims of the "war on terror," the Muslims who are being attacked. It must connect the dots between the money spent on war and the attacks on unions and cuts to education and needed programs. This is what these demonstrations on April 9 and 10 did....

In the early morning of March 31, the state Legislature of New York passed
an austerity budget that cuts more than $1 billion from education. Cuts to
state spending on Medicaid will lead to a loss of federal matching funds that
will total $5 billion. Hundreds of millions more were cut from other vital
social services....

The ongoing people’s struggle in Wisconsin won a victory in the April 5
elections when independent Wisconsin Supreme Court Judge JoAnne Kloppenburg won
a seat in the Wisconsin Supreme Court over Justice David Prosser, a Republican
conservative. It was announced on April 5 that Kloppenburg had won the election
by a few hundred votes....

Three thousand activists demonstrated against U.S. wars abroad on April 10 in San Francisco. Protesters rallied in Dolores Park in the city’s Mission district both before and after a march through the community. The United National Antiwar Committee sponsored the actions. Those who attended were buoyed by what they described as “the renewal of the anti-war movement....

Thousands of people from virtually all sectors of U.S. workers, the oppressed and youths gathered in Union Square in New York City April 9 and marched, shouted and drummed their anti-war slogans for two miles to Foley Square in downtown Manhattan. As this largest anti-war march in New York in years stretched for 20 blocks down Broadway, it passed by thousands of New Yorkers busy shopping, who smiled, cheered and waved at what can only be described as the new face of a vibrant movement to confront the war-makers....

And the beat goes on. Right-wing, pro-corporate politicians continue their
attacks on working and poor people across the country. At the same time, they
are escalating their war on women’s rights and health care, but not
without resistance....

On April 4th longshore workers joined tens of thousands of workers in more
than 1000 cities and towns across the country. They heeded the call of the
AFL-CIO for 'no business as usual' to show support for embattled
Wisconsin workers on the anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr.'s assassination as he supported Memphis, Tenn. sanitation workers'
strike for collective bargaining and dignity forty-three years ago....

Poor and working people in Japan, the U.S. and around the world are the ones
paying for these nuclear plants, paying the costs of disaster and also
guaranteeing the profits of the relatively small handful of people who own
them. The workers at the plant, the community around them and the people in
general should be the ones to make the decisions to shut down plants at
immediate risk and demand protection from GE and other nuclear power giants, as
well as accountability and reparations for the damages these corporations have
already caused....

Now is a good time to watch, either again or for the first time, the
powerful 1981 film “Lion of the Desert.” It tells the story of Omar
Mukhtar, a legendary leader of the armed resistance to Italy’s colonial
conquest of Libya....

he Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has drawn an important
conclusion from the unprovoked bombing of Libya by U.S. and NATO forces:
Developing countries should never let down their guard and believe promises
made by the imperialists....

The right-wing, imperialist Italian government headed by Silvio Berlusconi
has joined France, Qatar and Kuwait in recognizing the so-called
“rebel” Libyan National Transitional Council. The recognition comes after chief executive officer Paolo Scaroni of
Italy’s giant oil monopoly, Eni, met with council members to discuss
reviving the company’s access to oil production now in
“rebel” territory. Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, referring to Scaroni, said:
“He had important meetings on restarting cooperation about energy....

The union movement has called for “We Are
One” actions across the country to mark this important
anniversary and to call for solidarity with Wisconsin workers and the struggle
for justice every where. Thousands of actions both big and small are
being called not only by the unions but by community and student groups who are
joining on this day....

The Latin America-Caribbean Solidarity Committee of the
International Action Center & HondurasUSAResistencia urges everyone to read
the following statement in solidarity with the people of Honduras. A wave of
repression is sweeping the country and the movement in the US must say no. We
urge everyone to organize an contingent in solidarity with Latin America &
the Caribbean and the historic April 9 anti-war actions in NYC and San
Francisco. Si se puede!...

The hearts of workers and the oppressed of the world go out to the Japanese
people who have been hit by an earthquake and tsunami and are now threatened
with nuclear disaster. We can never forget that more than 200,000 people,
almost all civilians, were murdered by U.S. nuclear bombs dropped on Japan in
1945, while millions suffered from radiation poisoning, cancer and birth
defects in the following decades....

he major national Antiwar Rallies in NYC
at Union Square, on Saturday, April 9 and in San Francisco on Sunday, April 10
are just 2 weeks away. Momentum is building based on the urgency of
responding to the new attacks in Libya, no end to the U.S. wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan, more attacks and threats to Gaza, ugly attacks on
Muslims, new attacks on unions and collective bargaining and a new rounds of
cutbacks of every possible social program, particularly hitting the Black and
immigrant communities and the unemployed....

The ferocious storm of uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East continues to stymie the efforts of the U.S. and other Western powers to suppress or contain them. There are ongoing significant protests in Yemen, Bahrain, Kuwait and Iraq, all places with a substantial U.S. military presence....

The passage of right-wing Gov. Scott Walker’s union-busting bill
should not be the end of the story in Wisconsin. It should be the beginning of
a new phase of escalated struggle by the unions, the community and students to
overturn this illegal denial of workers’ rights. Walker and the right-wing Republican state legislative group are outright tools of the banks, the bondholders and corporations that are rolling in money
and still putting their profits before union rights and people’s
needs. There are many grounds on which to base a mass fightback to overturn this bill: It is illegal under international law; it was passed illegally; it denies
fundamental rights of unions and all workers, and it attacks communities and
students....

At a meeting at Hostos College on Saturday, March 5, some 200 labor, student
and community activists gave a ringing endorsement for a large-scale
mobilization to rally at City Hall and march to Wall Street on March 24. The
coalition includes numerous public sector unions, the CUNY Mobilization
Network, the South Bronx Community Congress, the Freedom Party, the Coalition
for Public Education, and the Bail Out the People Movement....

With the corporate media’s attention concentrated on Libya, its oil
reserves and the real danger of U.S. and NATO’s military intervention,
one could almost forget that enormous popular revolts are percolating
throughout North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula....

Senate Republicans in Wisconsin attempted the nuclear option! In a
final show of disregard for the sentiments of the majority of the people they
severed the union-busting provisions from the budgetary bill. This move allowed them to vote without a quorum on the union busting part alone. Last night they rammed this through the Senate. Thursday it will come before the Assembly. But not without resistance, thousands of people have already refilled the Capitol bringing with them sleeping bags, drums and making plans to stay.
The Wisconsin AFL-CIO and many others have put out an emergency call to come to Madison this morning. Protests are schedule this whole week and weekend. On Saturday, farmers are planning to drive their tractors to Madison to join union members. Milwaukee high school students are marching 80 miles to the Capitol....

The great struggle of the Wisconsin public workers has galvanized union
solidarity on a national level not seen since 1981. That was when the AFL-CIO
organized the Solidarity Day demonstration of half a million workers in
Washington, D.C., after President Ronald Reagan had fired 18,000 air traffic
controllers, members of the PATCO union, and banned them from federal
employment for life....

The movement to stop Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s “budget
repair bill” continues to draw mass support nationally and
internationally. The resistance has blossomed into a statewide people’s
rebellion with rallies, demonstrations, candlelight vigils and other protest
actions all focused on “kill the bill.”...

On Sunday, Feb. 27, Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannochi resigned; he was replaced
by the elderly Beji Caïd Essebsi. On Monday the ministers of Industry and
Finance, the last remnants of the old regime also resigned. In the evening so
did Nejib Chebbi and Ahmed Brahmi, representatives respectively of the
Tajdid movement and the PDP, the two legal parties under Ben Ali. On
Tuesday they were followed by two other ministers. We have lived without a
government for four days in which terror has been circling like a bird of prey
around the Qasbah: youth beaten, threatened, persecuted by police and hired
criminals who have taken over the streets of the Medina and the surrounding
April 9th Avenue. At the same time the space has been restructured and the
class divide has drawn new geographical lines: while still Qasbah snugly in its
sacred area, with its illustrious barbarians and hardened militants, the silent
majority, silent for 23 years, decided to speak for about two hours a
day, between 5 and 7 p.m., at a daily assembly convened at the Dome in the
pompous Olympic Village, to support Ghannouchi, demand an end to the
demonstrations and defend the "revolution" from those who want to
make one...

A new cabinet was sworn in on Feb. 22 in the aftermath of Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak’s resignation and the suspension of parliament and the
previous government. This was precipitated by the Feb. 11 Supreme Military
Council’s coup. The new cabinet’s appointment and publication of
the first set of political reforms on Feb. 26 is an attempt to address the
Egyptian people’s demands for a rapid return to civilian rule....

The White House is meeting with its allies among the European imperialist NATO countries to discuss imposing a no-fly zone over Libya, jamming all communications of President Moammar Gadhafi inside Libya, and carving military corridors into Libya from Egypt and Tunisia, supposedly to “assist refugees.” (New York Times, Feb. 27)...

The Al-Mahalla strike is part of the spate of industrial unrest that has rocked the country in the midst and aftermath of the 25 January revolution. Policemen, bank employees, workers at the Helwan Coke Company, in military production, cement, iron and steel and at the Suez Canal all struck for higher wages and improved working conditions, demanding an end to corruption in the workplace....

The heroic occupation of the Wisconsin state Capitol in Madison has
electrified the entire U.S. labor movement, which has suffered decades-long
attacks in the form of devastating layoffs; plant closings; loss of wages,
health care benefits, pensions and much more.

Now right-wing, Tea Party-supported governors like Scott Walker in Wisconsin
– on behalf of big business and Wall Street – are attempting to
decimate the right of all workers to unionize with reactionary legislation like
the “budget repair bill” that would deny workers the basic right to
collective bargaining....

For 12 straight days peaceful protesters: high school and college students,
families with children, workers from all of the unions including teachers,
state workers, nurses and firefighters have continued a 24 hour presence at the
Capitol....

Protests continued throughout the country of Yemen on Feb. 21 to demand the
ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The demonstrations, which began during
the time of the uprising in Tunisia and gained traction with recent events in
Egypt, have increased in scope and intensity in the past 12 days....

Anti-government demonstrations have spread to the Horn of Africa nation of
Djibouti, where 30,000 people marched on Feb. 18 demanding the resignation of
President Ismael Omar Guelleh. Two people were killed when police attacked
protesters in this country’s capital, which is also called Djibouti....

The heroic occupation of the Wisconsin state Capitol in Madison has electrified the entire U.S. labor movement, which has suffered decades-long attacks in the form of devastating layoffs; plant closings; loss of wages, health care benefits, pensions and much more.Now right-wing, Tea Party-supported governors like Scott Walker in Wisconsin – on behalf of big business and Wall Street – are attempting to decimate the right of all workers to unionize with reactionary legislation like the “budget repair bill” that would deny workers the basic right to collective bargaining....

On Jan. 28, Mumia Abu-Jamal retained the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. to represent him in the ongoing appeal of his capital murder conviction and death sentence. LDF will serve as co-counsel in the case with Judy Ritter, Esq., of Widener Law School in Wilmington, Del., who has represented Mr. Abu-Jamal since 2003....

Inside the state Capitol building in Madison, Wis., the halls normally filled with politicians and corporate lobbyists are now occupied by thousands of people. Banners and posters with messages of solidarity and slogans denouncing Gov. Walker's attack on the public sector hang from every wall....

“Now is the time. We can't let this die because we are at ground
zero and what happens here affects the rest of the world. We have to be strong.
A united front,” said Mahlon Mitchell of the Professional Firefighters of
Wisconsin at the massive afternoon rally at the state Capitol Feb. 19. Mitchell
became the first African-American president of the PFW on Jan. 12. On Feb. 19 the biggest demonstration yet, with an estimated crowd of
100,000, filled the grounds outside the state Capitol and continued the sit-in.
A massive roving picket line with all sectors of the working class -- union and
non-union workers, the unemployed, students, people of color, immigrants, and
the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer community -- marched on the
streets for the entire day accompanied by drumming, chanting, dancing and
singing....

Since Feb. 14, tens of thousands of students, workers and other community members have liberated the Wisconsin Capitol in Madison in response to Gov. Scott Walker’s “budget repair” bill, which would eliminate collective bargaining rights for 175,000 public sector union workers statewide. Gilbert Johnson, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 82 at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, told this reporter: “We’re repulsed by the efforts of the current administration to strip us of our rights and dignity. The increasing protests statewide, and especially at the state Capitol, are exactly what’s needed to kill Gov. Walker’s bill, which is a union-busting and anti-worker attack. The resistance by the people of Wisconsin is inspiring and instilling hope in poor and working people all over the country. We need a constant stream of people going to the Capitol to stop this bill and for all to come out to the emergency rally Thursday.”...

The Bail Out the People Movement is calling for nationally coordinated actions on Friday, February 18 and Saturday, February 19 in support of Wisconsin workers and students who have been occupying the state Capitol for the past four days. Activists involved in the occupation are enormously excited about the idea of coordinated national actions of support....

Thousands of Wisconsin public workers, students and teachers have been occupying the state Capitol for four days. In Capitol Square 50,000 workers have protested Gov. Scott Walker’s attempt to enact legislation ("Budget Repair Bill") that would wipe out the right of public workers to have a union, and would make collective bargaining illegal. Across Wisconsin schools and universities have been shut down by teachers, students and communities defending their right to education. Wisconsin workers and students are standing up for the rights of workers everywhere....

The Egyptian military would like to put the genie of the
Egyptian Revolution back in the bottle. But it won’t go back. The
so-called “orderly transition” — backed by the Obama
administration, NATO and the Egyptian ruling class — has the immediate
tactical goal of pushing the masses of people off the streets and off the stage
of history....

On behalf of the banks, the corporations and the Pentagon, Wisconsin Gov.
Scott Walker has declared all-out war on unions and their allies.
Walker’s “budget repair bill” proposal, which he unveiled at
a state Capitol press conference on Feb. 11, proposes to virtually eliminate
collective bargaining for approximately 175,000 public-sector union members.
Walker has submitted his proposal to the Wisconsin Legislature with the
directive that he wants his bill passed in the Assembly and the Senate by Feb.
17. In a swift response, unions and their allies across the state are mobilizing
to descend upon the Capitol in Madison this week with two major rallies planned
for Feb. 15 and 16. Numerous other protest actions by labor-community-student
organizations are ongoing across the state, including two major actions on Feb.
14: a march and rally to the Capitol building led by the Teaching Assistants
Association-AFT and a rally at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee led by the
Milwaukee Graduate Assistants Association-AFT Local 2169 and AFSCME....

Ghazala, a courageous woman, founder of the Committee of Unemployed
Graduates of Gafsa that so actively participated in the protests of 2008, has
given us a contact in Qasserine. We meet him halfway there, in Mejel Bel Abbes.
Boubaker, 33 year old, master's in engineering, also a member of the
Committee of Unemployed Graduates, is surviving by doing some odd jobs as an
electrician. He is tall, a bit prim, neatly dressed in the dignified severity
that attempts to preserve a modest sovereignty of his appearance in the midst
of difficulties. Like many educated young people in similar circumstances in a
situation where he is forced to remain single, he has wound up developing,
without wanting to, an air of a preacher or priest: there is something, how can
we put it, excessively clean in their dress and mannerisms. He speaks little
French, but has an almost scholarly knowledge of the history of the area, whose
natural wealth, well known by Romans, Vandals and Berbers, has been
misappropriated and wasted by postcolonial Tunisia....

The
greatest analysts of human society described real revolutions
as “festivals of the masses.” We see then that the 18 days
that overturned the Hosni Mubarak dictatorship is one of the
greatest revolutions in the history of humanity. Never before
have so many in such a condensed period of time become the
actors and writers of their own history. We congratulate the
people of Egypt for their tremendous victory over a tyrant who
for 30 years had the support of the “great powers” of the
European Union and especially of the United States until the
final moments of his reign....

The International Action Center joins with the people of Egypt and the world in
celebrating the stunning triumph of people's power and mass action in
Egypt. The greatest analysts of human society described real revolutions as
“festivals of the masses.” We see then that the 18 days that
overturned the Hosni Mubarak dictatorship is one of the greatest revolutions in
the history of humanity. Never before have so many in such a condensed period
of time become the actors and writers of their own history. We congratulate the
people of Egypt for their tremendous victory over a tyrant who for 30 years had
the support of the “great powers” of the European Union and
especially of the United States until the final moments of his reign....

From Gafsa to Redeyef you travel towards striped mountains that mark the
border with Algeria, under a pure blue sky, through a hard, dry terrain, a
planetary extension, which is about to succumb once more to the temptation of
being landscape: small towns with camels browsing between the houses, shepherds
with colorful headdresses, massive women sitting in the sun, wrapped in white
cloth, sharing tasks and conversation. Everything seems fresh, clean,
motionless, eternal and clear. But in reality there are few places in Tunisia
as ground down by its history as this square of adverse and ancient
land....

The Egyptian revolt against the U.S.-backed Hosni Mubarak regime has inspired many workers and oppressed people throughout the world. Mass solidarity demonstrations have taken place to show support for Egypt’s popular uprising. Here are brief reports on just a few notable actions, most of them on Feb. 5 or 6....

With the popular uprising that is rocking cities across Egypt now heading into its third week, solidarity rallies are building across the U.S. in response. Many of these protests are calling on the U.S. government to end its funding for the repressive regime of Hosni Mubarak....

Feb. 9 reports from Cairo say there are growing numbers of Egyptian workers who have gone out on strike all over the country, as the struggle to oust the despised, U.S.-backed Mubarak regime intensifies....

Feb. 8 — Hosni Mubarak’s military-police regime and its creators in Washington are waging a war of attrition to wear down the newly emerging Egyptian revolution. But the people show no signs of backing down. More than a million anti-government demonstrators today once again filled Liberation Square. Despite police-agent attacks, gradual escalation of pressure from the military and slanderous campaigns against the protesters on Egyptian state television, all reports are that masses of people have flooded into central Cairo to demand the immediate ouster of Mubarak....

"France is Paris, the rest is scenery," 19th century French
centralism said with contempt. Many times before we had been in central and
southern Tunisia, but we had never seen anything but flocks of sheep and
clouds, striated mountains and clean deserts, and people who seemed to
passively accept, in the villages and cafes along the highway, their condition
as a watermark or wrinkle in the tapestry. Our short and intense journey,
parallel to the turbulence that has shaken the country for more than a month,
reflects the decisive transformation, mental and material, of a landscape into
a territory....

This interview was conducted in bits and parts, in the middle of a protest
demonstration, stopping to talk once you recovered your breath after running
through the streets near Bourghiba Avenue. These are crucial days for the
revolution, but the glare of the mainstream media is now directed towards
Egypt. "Tunisia is not an international issue but a local one," the
Al Jazeera employees told us when we tried to inform them that Benali militia
had returned to their old ways in Sfax. Boukadous disagrees. "The
revolution began in the provinces and remains very active there."...

The masses in Tahrir (Liberation) Square - now known among the fighters as
Martyrs’ Square — gave the counterrevolutionary thugs of a dying
regime blow for blow, pushed them back and held the square, thus achieving both
a military and political victory. They were fully aware of the crucial
political importance of holding the square for the people. This was a victory
for the masses of Egyptian people, the people of the Middle East as a whole,
and the workers and oppressed of the world....

“You can only talk of revolution if there is a time when the whole
people go out to the streets to take part in a big festival. The victories are
celebrated and if we are not celebrating it's because there is victory. We
have not been able to celebrate anything in the street, not even the expulsion
of Ben Ali. And that means we have not yet won.”...

Don’t be confused by the deceptive and false statements uttered by
President Obama or Secretary of State Hillary Roddam Clinton suggesting that
they have sympathy for Egyptians fighting for liberation and jobs in Tahrir
Square.

Since the early hours of the morning loud music from large speakers in front
of the Egyptian Foreign Ministry on the Corniche Al Nile in downtown Cairo has
been booming. Shortly past 8 a.m., at the end of the curfew, as the first cars
and pedestrians crossed over from the Nile Zamalik in the direction of the city
center, an additional person reports to the loudspeaker to speak. He promises
that the government understands the concerns of the people and resolves to keep
the country in peace and prosperity. A man holds a T-shirt in the air, on which
President Hosni Mubarak is caught looking down and smiling. A good three dozen
men wave the Egyptian flag and look around uncertainly, and some melancholy men
behind them run swiftly past them along the promenade towards Tahrir Square,
Liberation Square. While some — probably for fear of losing their jobs
— cheer the Mubarak regime — the others will demand this day the
resignation of the man who ruled Egypt for 30 years. Only rarely is there even
a short battle of words between the two camps, that is then quickly ended by
soldiers, who have been blocking for days now bank of the Nile between the
State Department and Tahrir Square....

We returned this morning to Qasba, closed on all four sides by barbed wire.
The police only let in the employees who work in the district. But from the
outside we were able to see and photograph, the new lime painted on the walls
looking like a facelift, revealing a hidden history, a strangled antiquity.
There is no doubt they have done a good job. Not a trace of a slogan or a comma
of graffiti or stroke of black ink. Not even on the prime minister's stone
palace can you find the slightest trace of the noisy discussions that for five
days fused politics and life in a pure present without future....

The revolutionary upheaval in Egypt has brought millions of workers, youth
and professionals into the streets to demand the removal of the U.S.-backed
regime of Hosni Mubarak. The potential looms for a total collapse of
Washington’s foreign policy in the region....

Jan. 30 — Massive protests continue throughout Egypt to demand an end to the regime of President Hosni Mubarak, a 30-year dictatorship that has served as an anchor for U.S. imperialism in the Middle East. In the streets protesters have fraternized with members of the military, while police forces have largely retreated. Meanwhile, youth direct traffic, as self-defense committees have been organized to defend neighborhoods from violence at the hands of “thugs,” who many suspect to be plainclothes police and members of the ruling National Democratic Party. After three days of demonstrations in which tens of thousands of people faced brutal repression at the hands of the Egyptian state apparatus, hundreds of thousands came out on Jan. 28 to protest the police brutality, poverty, unemployment and corruption they have endured under the Mubarak regime. Defying a curfew imposed by Mubarak the day before, protesters hit the streets not only in the capital city, Cairo, but in cities throughout the country....

Hamida Ben Romdhane, director of La Press on January 13, still director of La Press on January 30, writes an article today entitled "I am guilty,” in which he lashes out against "the smoothies, sycophants, calculators and manipulators" that for years have been lackeys in the service of the dictator's personality cult. "Today," he says, "Tunisia breathes freely and so does our newspaper. ...

IAPSCC salutes the people of Egypt for their determined struggle to end the
30-year long tyrannical rule of Mubarak having a tacit understanding with
Israel and who was backed by the imperialist powers, esp. the USA, all these
years. Inspired by the example of Tunisian people’s struggle and victory
over dictatorial rulers, people in Egypt have taken to the streets for over one
week defying curfew and planning still more powerful movement....

After two weeks of restraint, in fact, the police have returned to take
charge of the situation. Yesterday they broke hands and legs in the Qasbah and
throughout the day lists have circulated of unconfirmed dead and missing. At
least 20 people were arrested this afternoon at the station. And on the Qasbah
square where yesterday there were still blankets, tents and cooking pots, some
dozens of mobile phones were scattered about. Of many of the people the police scattered yesterday nothing is known.Meanwhile this morning, 12 hours later, the walls of the building that for five
days was the ministry of the people were being painted over, the Press
published a front-page photograph of the crushed concentration under the
headline: "in the Qasbah the freedom caravan follows the protests."
The revolution is already a brand-name, the spark of life of a government that
weaves in the darkness and a press that uses new names to name the same
things....

At 9:30 a.m. a taxi driver answered our question about Mohamed Ghannouchi
with impeccable reasoning:“Do you know why I want him to go? Because he doesn't want to go.
If he doesn't want to go, it's because he is hiding something. If he is
hiding something, it can't be something good. And if he is hiding something
bad, he has to go.”...

If everything was following a plan, if 120 people were killed to rejuvenate
the old country and better locate it in an Arab world submissive to
Washington's plans, if it were aimed at better ensuring continuity by
introducing some cosmetic changes, then now it would have to sweep away the
embers that the wind -- always unpredictable -- has blown together at the
Qasbah. The past returns with unsettling speed....

A seemingly all-powerful military, police and media apparatus, that has had the
support of the U.S. superpower for decades, is crumbling before the even
greater strength of a united people who have first conquered fear and may now
push the dictator’s regime into the dustbin of history....

Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets in cities across Egypt
demanding the ouster of U.S. ally President Hosni Mubarak. These are the
largest anti-regime protests in Mubarak’s 30-year rule of this North
African country of 85 million people. Though the White House has declared the
Mubarak regime “stable,” even greater protests are expected on Jan.
28 following Friday services at mosques throughout the country. Egyptian
opposition forces were inspired by the uprising in nearby Tunisia, which on
Jan. 14 forced that country’s dictator, Zine El Abadine Ben Ali, to flee
to Saudi Arabia. The uprising in Tunisia surprised not only its own rulers but
their imperialist overlords in Paris and Washington....

To affirm and ensure our participation in the revolution of our people, who fought for their right to freedom and national dignity, this people who sacrificed dozens of martyrs and thousands of wounded and arrested, and in order to complete and secure the victory against both domestic and foreign enemies and against those who are attempting to hijack the sacrifices of the people, have constituted "The January 14th Front” as a political structure to promote and ensure the revolution to achieve its goals and fight and stop the forces of counterrevolution; this front is a structure that brings together national, progressive and democratic parties, forces and organizations....

After a festive and liberating week with unanimous participation, Tunisian society is beginning to split along class lines. It is a territorial division, which is beginning to separate Bourguiba Avenue from the Qasbah, and is also a cyber division, in which the same people who used facebook to fuel the revolution are today calling for calm and the restoration of order against the insurgent proletariat. You can perceive a disturbing contraction. Hamida Ben Romdhane, director of La Press, which on Jan. 13 dutifully praised the last steps Ben Ali took to try to calm the masses, on Jan. 20 exhibited on its front cover jewels allegedly confiscated from the Trabelsi family and praised the revolution of the worthy people of Tunisia....

The unknown country, which has made the revolution, which has sacrificed 120 lives in the protests, is found not on Bourguiba Avenue, where intellectuals celebrate a revolution that they can gain from and then withdraw, but in the Qasbah in front of the prime minister's headquarters. Yesterday hundreds of people slept here, and now, at 12 a.m. (on Jan. 24), thousands of them are still shouting: "nidal nidal hata iusqut el nitham", "Al yaum al-yaum tusqut el-hukuma" ("Struggle, struggle until we end the regime","today, today we overthrow the government.") ...

A revolution, can it so easily become a habit? Is it compatible with the customary normal duties of government, the production and reproduction of everyday life, the natural decline of forces? The government hopes and protesters fear the same thing: fatigue will set in. But this Sunday [Jan. 23] of transition to "the first day of normality," which will once again put to the test the people's ability to break out, Bourguiba Avenue remains vibrant under a light so pure, so sharp, that its buildings and the trees look bare, even skinless....

In some sense these days I feel very Tunisian: because, like other Tunisians, I realize that up to now I understood nothing about Tunisia. And because what is now clear to me, like to all other Tunisians, is mostly a great confusion. The situation, eight days after the collapse of the tyrant, it stretches and stretches without breaking. As in all revolutions, everything is decided in the first few weeks and today one everything feels a little uncomfortable -- like amorphous, painful, formless freedom -- a great uncertainty....

We started the day with frightening evidence that there are things the revolution can’t do and that irrational forces operate beyond the dominant logic governing things. Our friend Amin has caught the flu.

Regardless, the revolution can cure sadness, melancholy, moodiness and suicidal tendencies. Mohammed cites the experience of a friend discharged by his psychiatrist after Jan. 14, the day of the dictator's fall. We invented a new term, "thauratherapy" -- the revolution (thaura) as psychological therapy. The demonstrations, which are repeated another day in the city center, are saving bodies and souls....

The Pima County Tea Party Patriots are holding a rally Jan. 28 in Tucson, Ariz., to launch a campaign to oust County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik. The Tea Party and right-wingers all over the country have opened a campaign of vilification against Dupnik because he pointed the finger at the ultraright in his press conference on the day of the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, an attack that claimed six lives....

Brother Bomani is one of three prisoners who went on hunger strike at
Ohio State Penitentiary to protest the conditions of their confinement and were
supported by a nationwide and international movement. OSP Warden David
Bobby brought the hunger strike to an end by offering the prisoners more than
they had asked for on 1/14/11....

Haiti has endured a year of unimaginable and profound suffering, under a
government dedicated to greed and serving the interests of the imperialists.
More than 1.5 million people are living in huts or under sheets and tarps
throughout Port-au-Prince, still homeless since last January’s
earthquake. There is an unemployment rate of 80 percent. More than 3,600 people
have died and another 171,000 are infected from the cholera epidemic, imported
by Minustah, the U.N.’s occupation force....

Jan. 18 — A popular uprising in the North African state of Tunisia since mid-December has driven President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who had ruled the Western-allied government for 23 years, into exile. Ben Ali fled on Jan. 14 after tens of thousands of workers and youths attacked the Ministry of the Interior and other government buildings in the capital of Tunis and in the city of Carthage. When a street vendor who was attacked by police committed suicide by self-immolation on Dec. 17, it unleashed this enormous struggle. Defying tear gas and even live fire from the security forces that killed between 50 and 100 people, thousands also demonstrated in dozens of Tunisia’s provincial cities until they brought down a repressive head of state....

The Martin Luther King Day protest focuses on
Woodlawn management’s announced plans to outsource 23 of the remaining 38
union jobs at Woodlawn, as an act of vengeance against the workers for choosing
a fighting union to represent them. Woodlawn management told the union it has
contracted with the Brickman group, a Westchester-based firm that exploits
immigrant labor, underpaying them and then abandoning them when they stand up
and ask questions....

The Jan. 8 shooting of Arizona Congressperson Gabrielle Giffords should
rightfully be termed a political assassination attempt. The planned murder
attempt, which took the lives of six people, including a 9-year-old child,
takes place in a political climate of extreme racism, anti-immigrant terror,
and fear-mongering that the right-wing, their politicians and pundits have been
stoking for more than a decade.It is part of the calculation of the ruling elite in this country to fan the flames of division, racism, and reactionary thinking in order to divert
people’s attention from the economic crisis. The attempt on the life of a
member of Congress is a direct by-product of the economic crisis....

A powerful storm system dumped heavy snow from the Carolinas to Canada on the U.S. East Coast during 36 hours starting Dec. 26. New York and the rest of the Northeast took the brunt of the blizzard, with snowfall totals measuring from 20 to 32 inches. The follow-up to this storm has raised the stakes as Wall Street and the banks are on the attack against unionized public service workers and insist on eliminating jobs....

Four death-sentenced prisoners, wrongfully convicted of crimes following the 1993 prison rebellion in the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, Ohio, started a “rolling” hunger strike Jan. 3. The strike is to protest the highly restrictive solitary confinement where they have been placed in the supermax Ohio State Penitentiary, located in Youngstown, since 1998. These prisoners are starting to run out of appeals. They say they would rather die, if they must, on their own terms, rather than on a gurney by lethal injection. They intend the hunger strike to help strike a blow against confinement conditions so inhumane that they amount to torture....

Before I speak my piece, let me make one thing perfectly clear: I don’t want to die. I want to live and breathe and strive to do something righteous with my life. Truly. For the past 16 years, however, I’ve been in solitary confinement, confined to a cell 23 hours a day for something I didn’t do and, speaking honestly, I have gone as far as I’m willing to go. Am I giving up? No....

On Jan. 3, four prisoners held in Ohio State Penitentiary, a supermax prison started a hunger strike to protest the highly restrictive conditions they have been subjected to since they were moved to the prison in 1998. These prisoners are Bomani Shakur aka Keith LaMar, Siddique Abdullah Hasan, Jason Robb and Namir Abdul Mateen aka James Were, all received death sentences as the result of wrongful convictions on charges related to the 1993 prison uprising in Lucasville, Ohio. Hasan and Robb helped negotiate the settlement of the Lucasville uprising, preventing a massacre such as the one in Attica in 1971 which resulted in more than forty deaths....

The Concerned Coalition to Respect Prisoners’ Rights learned that on
or about December 16, Terrance Bryant Dean was severely beaten by guards at
Macon State Prison where he was incarcerated. The Coalition asserts this brutal
beating was not isolated and was a retaliatory act carried out by the
Department of Corrections (DOC) against non-violent striking inmates. The
Coalition was formed to support the interests and agenda of thousands of
Georgia prisoners who staged a peaceful protest and work strike initiated in
early December....

The Ohio State Penitentiary (OSP) in Youngstown, Ohio, holds 539 people
behind its brick walls, multiple barbed wire fences and iron bars. It is within
this dungeon that four of the men known as the Lucasville Five are
incarcerated: Bomani Shakur, Adbullah Hasan, Jason Robb and Namir Abdul Mateen.
These men are held in a special section of OSP’s death row, awaiting
lethal injection for the crime of participating in a rebellion....

Following is a commentary from political prisoner Bomani Shakur, one of
the Lucasville Five, now on death row in Ohio on false charges from a 1993
prison uprising. Shakur was convicted as Keith LaMar....

Tens of thousands of workers in Greece took to the streets Dec. 15 to
protest the drastic austerity measures the Greek government has imposed on
them, under pressure from the banks that loaned money to cover its financial
crisis....

Siddique Abdullah Hasan, Bomani Shakur (Keith LaMar), Jason Robb and Namir
Mateen (James Were) will start a hunger strike on Monday Jan. 3 to protest
their 23-hour a day lock down for nearly 18 years. These four death-sentenced
prisoners have been single-celled (in solitary) in conditions of confinement
significantly more severe than the coniditions experienced by the approximately
125 other death-sentenced prisoners at the supermax prison, Ohio State
Penitentiary in Youngstown....

For over week, since December 9, thousands of Georgia prisoners have refused
to work, stopped all activities and locked down in their cells in a peaceful
protest for their human rights. It is urgent to support this heroic act of
resistance to inhuman prison conditions and racism....

According to reports from family members and prisoner rights advocates,
thousands of incarcerated men throughout Georgia engaged in a coordinated
strike starting Dec. 9. They refused to go to work or participate in other
assignments or activities, but stayed in their cells, calling it a
“lockdown for liberty.” Using unauthorized cell phones, the prisoners have been able to organize among themselves and to communicate with news media and supporters. What is so extraordinary about this action besides its statewide character
is its unity among the prisoners — Black, Latino, white, Muslims,
Christians, Rastafarians — to achieve their central demand to be treated
as human beings, not slaves or animals.
...

Students and faculty at the City University of New York, in opposition to
another tuition increase, held two disruptions at meetings of the Board of
Trustees in November. The board had proposed a 5 percent tuition increase,
which would amount to $125 more per semester, to begin in the spring of 2011.
On top of that, the BOT proposed an additional increase of $500 per semester
for the Hunter College School of Social Work. CUNY tuition had already been
raised by 15 percent in 2009. Since 2003, tuition has increased 44 percent....

The New York chapter of the Women’s Fightback Network hosted a
reportback meeting Dec. 4 on the Montreal International Women’s
Conference that took place Aug. 13-16 in Canada. The meeting, held at the
Solidarity Center in Manhattan, was standing room only as women activists of
many nationalities, ages and political backgrounds saw video footage and a
power point presentation about the conference....

For the seventh consecutive year, union leaders, social movement activists
and socialists from many countries in the Western Hemisphere came together in
this dynamic border city on the first weekend in December for intense
discussions. They focused on the global crisis of the imperialist system, its
increasing belligerence and its devastating attacks on the living conditions of
the international working class....

A United Nations Human Rights Council gathering in Switzerland heard testimony from oppressed groups inside the United States who exposed Washington’s official state policy of gross violations against peoples of color and workers in general....

Another huge fraud is being perpetrated so the rich can get their way. Their weapon is fear. The corporate media are full of pundits explaining the government must cut the national budget or everything will collapse...

“I voted for Obama because I felt his message and wanted to be a part of a change in America. This year it’s different. All the confusion with the Tea Party, all the negativity against the president and the Republicans who want to take back their country, all my hope is gone,” said Brian Henderson, a 22-year-old Washington, D.C., resident. “But I’m still going to vote and encourage others to do so also. It’s hard to get excited when you don’t feel like the options are any better than the devil and Satan in some places.” (finalcall.com, Nov. 1)...

Many participants believed the real choice humanity faces is between increased misery and wars on one side and the struggle for a socialist future on the other. The capitalist collapse and persistent decline for the working class make this choice ever more urgent....

A recent decision by the Federal Reserve to provide the bankers another $600
billion in bailout funds demonstrates the government’s continuing
failure, even under Democratic Party leadership, to provide any relief for
working people and the oppressed....

From Dec. 3 to 5 in Tijuana, Mexico — just minutes from the San Diego,
Calif., airport — a cross-section of workers from Latin America who are
confronting the global crisis will meet with U.S. workers grappling with
devastating challenges. Building on six previous conferences, the
meeting’s aim is to grow the unity of the working class in the Americas
and increase its influence — from the tip of Chile to Alaska — by
sharing problems but also examining strategies to fight and win....

Nectalí Rodezno, Attorney and Coordinator
of the National Lawyers Front
Against the Military Coup in Honduras, Is leading an extensive tour in the United States during the
month November,exposing the truth of what really happened in Honduras, during
the military coup in June 28th, 2009....

he way ahead is uncharted. But all of history tells us that material conditions determine consciousness. It was the wretched conditions for labor in the 1800s that led to the development of Marxism, scientific socialism, the first unions and the first international organizations of the working class. It was the whip of racist reaction that led to the movements for civil rights and Black liberation. It was the oppression built into capitalism that led to the struggles for women’s rights and LGBTQ liberation....

Most political pundits and leading corporate-oriented publications are
predicting significant gains by right-wing Republican candidates across the
United States in the midterm elections taking place Nov. 2. This possible shift
in power within ruling-class politics is attributed to two main factors: the
so-called conservative backlash as represented by the Tea Party and the lack of
enthusiasm among key constituents within the African-American and Latino/a
communities, as well as among working women, who voted overwhelming for the
Democratic Party in 2006 and 2008....

The anniversary of the birth of a cherished freedom fighter occurred
recently. On Oct. 6, 1917, Fannie Lou Townsend was born and grew up on a
Mississippi plantation in a sharecropper family. She began picking cotton at
the age of 6. She was the youngest of 20 children and the granddaughter of an
enslaved African. After marrying, she became Fannie Lou Hamer....

The Black and Latino/a-led Freedom Party is attempting to get a minimum of
50,000 votes in the Nov. 2 midterm elections in New York State in order to
secure ballot status. One of the FP’s main goals is to challenge the
decades-long, oppressive stranglehold that the big business, pro-war Republican
and Democratic parties have had, a hold that keeps workers and oppressed
peoples economically and politically powerless....

Koch Oil Industries, Donald Trump, Rupert Murdoch, ExxonMobil and the super
rich are all telling us to hate Muslims, hate immigrants and blame them for
everything. They don’t like speaking in their own names so they get the
Tea Party to do it for them....

With the close of the most recent round of climate talks in Tianjin, China,
which took place during the first week of October, the world is gearing up for
the next major talks in Cancún, Mexico, to begin in late November. The
Tianjin talks, with delegates from more than 150 countries, produced very
little progress, as the fundamental divide between the desires of rich
countries and the needs of poor ones was not resolved....

he recent revelations of massive fraud in the processing of foreclosures by
major banks demonstrate the urgent necessity for activists to press the demand
for an immediate declaration of a two-year moratorium to halt all foreclosures
and evictions in the U.S....

The 16-year struggle to free Jamie and Gladys Scott from a Mississippi
prison has caught the significant attention of a progressive African-American
journalist. Bob Herbert, who writes for the New York Times on a regular basis,
penned two op-ed pieces within three days of each other exposing the injustice
that the African-American sisters have suffered and calling for their immediate
release....

Nearly 80 demonstrations in 25 states were organized on Oct. 7, the second
National Day of Action to Defend Education, as thousands of students and
workers took to the streets to fight back against the attacks on education
being leveled across the country in the form of devastating budget cuts,
tuition hikes and the growing threat of privatization....

Passage of stringent anti-woman restrictions on abortion funding in the new health care system isn’t enough to satisfy Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ). Chair of the so-called Pro-Life Caucus for 28 years, Smith introduced HR 5939, the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” on July 29. As of Oct. 10 there were 183 cosponsors.

Smith’s law seeks to change the Hyde Amendment — which has denied more than 1 million poor women Medicaid funding for abortion since 1976 — into a permanent law. In 2008 one in eight or 7.5 million reproductive-age women, who are disproportionately women of color, qualified for Medicaid health coverage....

Hungary has arrested Zoltan Bakonyi, managing director of MAL Aluminium, the privately owned company responsible for the country’s worst environmental disaster. Bakonyi is son of the company’s owner, Arlep Bakonyi, “a businessman who played a central role in the privatization of the country’s aluminum industry and is the largest shareholder of the company.” (New York Times, Oct. 11)

As of Oct. 11, 4,000 people were desperately working to reinforce the reservoir dam owned by MAL that had partially burst a week earlier....

n exciting event launched the Freedom Party campaign on Oct. 3 at the
Church of the Resurrection, which also serves as home to the South Bronx
Community Congress. Charles Barron and Ramon Jimenez, candidates for governor
and attorney general, respectively, both spoke eloquently about the emerging
Black and Latino/a alliance that sees well beyond the Nov. 2 elections to a new
“people’s power bloc” that can genuinely fight for and
protect the interests of working people in the city and state of New York....

The Ecuadorean people came into the streets by the thousands to confront the
national police and prevent a coup and possible assassination of President
Rafael Correa on Sept. 30. A section of about 800 of these police had kept the
president captive for 14 hours at the Police Hospital in Quito before military
units brought him back to the presidential palace....

The nearly 29-year struggle to free political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal faces
a critical juncture with the announcement that the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the Third Circuit will review Abu-Jamal’s death sentence on Nov. 9. It is
imperative that all who stand for justice and against racism and state
repression pack the courtroom in Philadelphia....

At the rally on Saturday, Oct. 2, for jobs,peace and equality, many critical issues will be raised by the International Action Center and Bail Out the People Movement and other organizations, such as the need for a real WPA jobs program. However in the wake of the FBI raids and Grand Jury subpoenas against activists last week, the IAC and BOPM want to make sure that there is very visible opposition to FBI repression, with the understanding that the attack on these activists is an attack on all who are fighting against war, racism and for economic and social justice....

On Oct. 7 there will be a citywide rally including students, educators,
workers and community activists to defend public education at 4 p.m. at the
Harlem State Office Building, followed by a march across Harlem, ending at the
City College of New York....

The official unemployment rate, which was 9.5 percent in July, has no
credibility. It is classic “political spin” intended to fill
workers’ heads with hope that a recovery is right around the corner....

On the ninth anniversary of September 11, thousands of people marched against racism in a diverse show of solidarity that far outnumbered the Tea Party-led hate rallies.“We had at least 10,000 people,” said Sara Flounders, one of the coordinators of the Unity and Solidarity Rally. “And the rally program – with speakers from the labor movement, immigrants' rights coalitions, and clergy from synagogues, churches and mosques – featured the dynamic diversity of almost every community in New York.” Once the opponents of Park51 had made September 11 into a racist attack on Muslims, the question was whether progressive forces were going to allow this poisonous hate campaign to go unchallenged.Today that question was resoundingly answered in a dynamic anti-racist rally that attracted over fifty speakers and featured noted personalities such as anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, former Congressperson Cynthia McKinney, and former U.S. Attorney Ramsey Clark....

The Emergency Mobilization Against Racism and Anti-Islamic Bigotry is
organizing a rally for civil rights and religious freedom on Saturday,
September 11th. This rally is a response to the ugly and violent attacks, both
verbal and physical, which are happening more and more frequently around the
country. It is also a specific response to the hate-filled protest being called
by a coalition of racist and anti-Islamic organizations on September 11th....

Uniting under the theme, “Moving forward the militant global women’s movement in the 21st century,” more than 350 women from 32 countries participated in the Montreal International Women’s Conference, held Aug. 13-16. The conference resulted in the formation of an International Women’s Alliance. The IWA will hold its first assembly in 2011 to adopt a constitution of principles of unity and an action proposal....

Activists here and around the country have begun mobilizing to stop cold those who promote racism and hatred of Muslims. They plan to confront a vicious demonstration and rally scheduled for the World Trade Center site on Sept. 11. A rally and counterprotest near the WTC site on Aug. 22 showed that the confrontation is gaining momentum....

Workers across Europe — specifically in Greece, Portugal, France,
Spain and Italy in the West and Romania in the East — have begun to
resist the capitalists’ relentless assault on their wages, benefits,
social services and secure existence....

A combative and confident workers’ movement in Greece is throwing a monkey wrench into the plans of Europe’s politicians, who are trying to revive the capitalist system by further grinding down workers’ wages and benefits.

Greek workers have been demonstrating in the tens of thousands, calling on their class sisters and brothers throughout Europe to rise up against the austerity plans that politicians of various stripes, from Britain’s Labour Party to Germany’s conservative coalition, have been carrying out in cahoots with the owners of the multinational corporations and banks....

Thirty thousand people convened at the World People’s Conference on
Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia. The
conference, which took place from April 19-22, hosted people from more than 135
countries and 90 official state representatives. Climate activists, community
organizers, artists, musicians, scholars and workers from around the world
joined forces over the common goal of finding an effective and practical
solution to the climate crisis — a task that the rich, ruling countries
of the world proved, at the Copenhagen Climate Summit, that they are incapable
of accomplishing....

Renee Washington DeFreitas, a 51 year old state employee and mother of five
did everything she was supposed to: she worked hard long hours, volunteered for
overtime when it existed, saved her money, and bought a home with the hope that
she would have something as she grew older, both for herself and her children
and grandchildren....

The Bail Out the People Movement, meeting in New York on Feb. 24, voted to endorse and help to mobilize for the March 20 National March on Washington. The demonstration, called by the Answer Coalition, raises the slogans: U.S. out of Afghanistan and Iraq, Free Palestine, Reparations for Haiti, and Money for Healthcare, Jobs and Education. The endorsement, proposed by the International Action Center, had unanimous support and was followed by a concrete discussion of outreach, transportation and material to take to Washington....

In the wake of the tragic events in Haiti,the organizers of the Martin Luther King Birthday Bail Out the People Not the Banks Protest on Wall St., scheduled for Friday, January 15, at Wall St. and Broad St. from 3:30 to 6:00 p.m., have decided to make Friday's protest a solidarity event with the Haitian people....

The failure of capitalist methods of production and distribution is clearly
illustrated by the way the collapse of the financial and industrial centers in
Western Europe and the United States has devastated former colonial countries.
Since late 2007 tens of millions of workers and farmers in several regions of
the African continent have been severely affected by unemployment, rising
commodities prices, food deficits and the decline in material aid from the
industrialized states....

What distinguishes the contemporary economic crisis within global capitalism
from other downturns over the last three decades is that the rapid
deterioration of the social conditions of working people and the oppressed is
taking place simultaneously all over the planet....

In an early sign of what promises to be a growing movement, 1,000 people defied
a torrential downpour to rally on Wall Street on Friday, April 3 in response to
a national call from the Bail Out the People Movement. The central demands of the demonstration were: 1) a real jobs program; and 2) an immediate moratorium on foreclosures and evictions. Participants included unions,
community groups, youth and students from Detroit, Boston, Baltimore,
Philadelphia, Buffalo and dozens of organizing centers throughout the
country....

At the Bank of America Plaza spirited demonstrators echoed chants off the towering Bank of America corporate
building calling for an end to bank bailouts and foreclosures and evictions. A
picket line of dozens of protesters rallied around a large tent set up to dramatize the epidemic of "Hoovervilles" or tent cities in California due to the housing and job crisis. ...

Rally Friday, April 3:
Gather at 1:00 pm on Wall Street at Broadway. Rally on Broadway from Wall Street south to Exchange and block further South on
Broadway to the 'Bull'. There will be contingents of youth, women, worker and
immigrant rights, and more. ...

On Friday, April 3, the Bail Out the People Movement, a growing coalition of
hundreds of organizations and thousands of activists, will march on Wall Street
and AIG. Protesters on April 3 will bring demands for a real jobs program, a
moratorium on foreclosures, and other necessary programs for bailing out the
people, not banks and Wall Street financial institutions....

On Friday, April 3, the Bail Out the People Movement, a growing coalition of
hundreds of organizations and thousands of activists, will march on Wall Street
and AIG. Protesters on April 3 will bring demands for a real jobs program, a
moratorium on foreclosures, and other necessary programs for bailing out the
people, not banks and Wall Street financial institutions....

Dorotea Manuela saluted working women warriors, including those who carried
through the Flint sit-down strike to victory in 1937. Sandra McIntosh of Work
for Quality, Fight for Equity spoke of the struggle for access to quality
education, which is under attack in Boston. Palestinian activist Layla Hijab
Cable gave an inspiring historical overview of Palestinian women resisting
Zionist occupation, ethnic cleansing and genocide...

In just over 48 hours, more than 30,000 messages have been
sent to NYC Mayor Bloomberg, the NYC City Council, the
Jacob Javits Center, and the Real Estate Disposition
Corporation (REDC)demanding the cancellation of a
foreclosure auction planned for this Sunday....

It is becoming clear that the stimulus packages and bail out proposals coming from Wall Street and Washington won't even make a dent in the growing number of layoffs and foreclosures. Working people must organize independently to demand a bail out for the people, not the banks.It's time to march on Wall Street!...

The Treasury Secretary will soon announce plans for the federal government to essentially take over the failed mortgage industry. The announcement is expected to include a dramatic expansion of the Troubled Asset Recovery
Program, under which the U.S. Treasury will either directly control or have a significant interest in most mortgages, either through the creation of a special federal bank for failing loans or with enhanced federal guarantees to back up failing loans....

Activists fighting to stop home foreclosures and community devastation
gathered in the bitter cold outside the state Capitol here on Feb. 3 as Gov.
Jennifer Granholm delivered her annual State of the State address. The action was called by the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions....

Activists with the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions
are stepping up their struggle for a moratorium on foreclosures, evictions,
utility shutoffs and plant closings. At a Jan. 10 coalition meeting, organizers
announced plans for a demonstration at the State Capitol in Lansing on Feb. 3
when Gov. Jennifer Granholm delivers her annual State of the State address....

The stock markets are crashing, the world economy is headed into a deep recession or even depression, and the U.S. government and its top bankers, along with their counterparts around the world, are giving what's going to amount to trillions of dollars to bailout the richest 1
percent of the people ...

In the week since Bush announced plans to use $700 billion in public funds
to rescue Wall Street banks, nearly 200 demonstrations have been organized throughout the U.S. to oppose the bailout and express the righteous anger of workers and poor. Many were organized by grassroots groups taking advantage of the Internet to get the word out....

President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Timothy Geithner and
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson have been huddled in round-the-clock meetings,
hammering out deals. It has been done in secrecy, behind the backs of the
workers and the middle class, who will get stuck with the bill. They have been
working out these deals with the same loan sharks of high finance whose orgies
of speculation, gambling and deception in pursuit of profit led to the crisis
in the first place....

The Senate has just voted to pass a US$700-billion financial bailout for corrupt financial institutions, while ignoring the real needs of working people. In addition to an unprecedented giveaway to Wall Street, the bill also includes $100 billion dollars in tax breaks for corporations - but no relief for working people who are facing foreclosure and who need health care, jobs, and education....

Foreclosures and evictions are devastating working families around the country. One in nine homeowners nationwide is either behind in their mortgage payments or their family homes are in foreclosure. Over 72,000 homeowners have lost their homes in the Detroit area alone. The vacant home rate in Detroit is 18 percent, second only to New Orleans.
...

Organizers with the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions have been on the go in Michigan. Activists have been fanning out and spreading the message that a ray of hope exists in the midst of the economic depression and home foreclosure epidemic devastating families in cities, rural areas and communities throughout the state. They have been publicizing SB 1306,
a law recently introduced in the Michigan legislature that would put a two-year moratorium or halt on foreclosures and evictions....

A delegation of Detroit activists traveled to Washington, D.C., on April 16 to participate in the national demonstration called by the Ad Hoc Network to Stop
Foreclosures and Evictions. The action took place outside the Mortgage Bankers
Association Annual Policy Summit held in a hotel just two blocks away from Capitol Hill....

The International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU), known for its militant and democratic traditions as well as its economic and social justice activism, has written a new chapter in its glorious labor history by shutting down all 29 ports on the West Coast for eight hours on May Day....

The Ad Hoc National Network to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions brought people, many facing foreclosure, from as far away as Boston, Raleigh and Miami. Sharon Black, a Baltimore organizer who chaired the rally, pointed out that the billionaire bankers were in D.C. to lobby for more tax breaks and concessions
from Congress....

I urge you to join me and many others at 3:00 pm on Wednesday, April 16, 2008 in a
national protest at the Mortgage Bankers Association Conference in Washington
D.C. at the Washington Court Hotel, 525 New Jersey Avenue, N.W....

When the Mortgage Bankers Association meets in Washington, D.C., on April
16-17 at the swanky Washington Court Hotel, their gathering will draw
protesters. The MBA is a national lobbying group that represents the interests
of the banks, including lending firms that are directly responsible for the
evictions of tens of thousands of people, including both buyers and renters, from their foreclosed homes....

Attention antiwar activists--dust off your protest signs and bring them to a national demonstration against home foreclosures and evictions in Washington DC, on Wednesday, April 16. Join the Ad Hoc National Network Against Home Foreclosures and Evictions in front of the Mortgage Bankers Association Annual Conference, the biggest assembly of mortgage bankers in the country, to demand a moratorium on home foreclosures and evictions. Almost everyone hates the war in Iraq, but until now many have seemed resigned to leaving it up to politicians to end it. That's because most people have felt that the war didn't affect them personally. That mindset is coming to an end. ...

THE MORTGAGE BANKERS ASSOCIATION (MBA) -- the biggest national lobby of all the banks -- including the criminal predatory lenders, that are busy evicting your neighbors, relatives, friends
and maybe you from your home -- is holding it's annual policy conference in Washington D.C., on April 16 and 17. Their main goal is to make sure that bankers continue to get bailed out while families get tossed out! ...

In this time of economic crisis, thousands of homes are being foreclosed, workers are being laid off in record numbers, and our education system and social programs are severely underfunded. Meanwhile, the raging wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are costing human lives on both sides as well as U.S. tax dollars. The population of the U.S. has proven that we are against these imperialist wars; and yet our tax dollars are going to these occupations, as opposed to our needs....

Sara Flounders, co-director of the International Action Center, delivered a
30-minute assembly program on Feb. 8 to the 1,000-person student body of Phillips Exeter Academy, a prominent private high school in New Hampshire. Her talk was divided into four sections: why capitalism requires war and inequality; why capitalism requires racism; the basics of socialism; and the choices that we make that impact society....

A small clique of WBAI board members and their friends, led by multimillionaire marketing huckster Steve Brown and variously called "ACE" and "independents," have escalated their illegitimate efforts to take control of the station. In November, they sued Pacifica and got a judge to stop the board elections that were almost complete....

Jan. 22 marks the 35th anniversary of the legalization of the right to
abortion in the United States. The Supreme Court's landmark 1973 ruling
in the case of Roe v. Wade finally guaranteed women the right to obtain safe, legal abortions in every state in hospitals, clinics and doctors'offices....

Fighters for reproductive justice for poor women are stepping up their campaign to overturn the Hyde Amendment, a reactionary law enacted by Congress in 1976 and signed by Democratic President Jimmy Carter in 1977. The Hyde
Amendment denies women on Medicaid the right to funding for abortions. It is named for its archreactionary sponsor, Henry Hyde, a former long-term Republican congressman from Illinois. ...

On Dec. 20th, just five days before the Christmas holiday, residents and supporters of New Orleans public housing were denied their right to speak regarding the demolition of 4,700 public housing units. The housing is to be
replaced by :mixed income housing," which really means upscale and expensive housing....

The Coalition to Stop the Demolitions is calling for National Days of Action
on Jan. 25 and 26. The call is to rally activists around the country to show
solidarity with public-housing residents in New Orleans and to save four
public-housing developments from being demolished by private developers in
favor of more expensive luxurious developments....

Resolution calls for federally-funded public works program (like WPA of the 1930s) with prevailing wages and the right to organize...the Right of Return of evacuees...and an end to state repression, racial profiling and police brutality in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast....

The Venezuelan National Electoral Commission (CNE) early on Dec. 3 announced the results of the previous day's referendum on proposed major changes to 69 articles of the Venezuelan Constitution. The "No" vote opposing the reforms had won by a margin of less than 2 percent over the "Yes" option, which would have deepened progressive changes and ratified the reconstruction of society on a socialist basis....

Some 10,000 grassroots organizers, anti-racist fighters, farm workers, domestic workers, anti-war veterans, former prisoners and their families, spokespeople for lesbian/gay/bi/trans rights, women's rights and environmental organizations, and activists in virtually every progressive struggle underway in the U.S. today came together in Atlanta from June 27 to July 1 for the U.S. Social Forum....

Low-income women are often forced to use money they need for food and rent to cover the cost of an abortion. Many women cannot raise enough money and must continue the pregnancy and stay trapped in poverty. ...